Thloging #4

This week was an interesting week. For starters we started talking about the difference between whom and who. I never even thought about it til Monday, I just usually knew when and where to use it. I use "whom" in professional settings, I use it to address people that I do not know where the message is going to, for example (to whom it may concern), and when I am addressing someone professionally throughout a paper. On the other hand, I use "who" when addressing someone informally or just in general when I am writing.
Then we focused on what a reverse outline is and how it can help us. A reverse outline is when you write your entire paper first and then decide to go back and revise it after. This helps us out because we are able to depict each and every paragraph one by one and get the full message out of it. You are able to see whether you follow your main point throughout your paper or not. You also get to see how much evidence you have throughout your entire paper and whether it allows your writing to flow or not.
One activity that really helped me this week was the color activity. Due to this activity I was able to see what I lacked, what I did not lack and what I had too much of. It also allowed me to see whether my summary and analysis flowed with my evidence or whether I was completely just jumbling around.I was able to see what the "good"part of my paper was and what did not work at all for me. I really would have wished that we could have done this earlier on in the process of the paper but now I know what to do on my own for next time so that is fine.
Another activity that I found really helpful was breaking sentences up one by one. This helped me realize what sentences were run-on's, what sentences did not make sense, and how my paragraphs were really structured. This is another activity I wished I would have learned about earlier or at least thought of on my own because I have always had trouble with run-on sentences.

Thlogging #3

Well this week was a very fast week because of our day off on Monday due to holidays so I thought that, that would make it a very good week because we missed a day of class but I was wrong. I felt like this caused this week to be extra difficult because we had to still do all the work like if we were in class just that we had to be a bit more independent about it.
So I finished writing my first draft of my WP1 over the weekend before Dr. Martin Luther King day and I thought it was fine, but then I came back to Santa Barbara on Monday and could not help but to go over it. I actually do a lot of editing and switching around but I thought it was a pretty good paper. Then when we went to class on Wednesday I was ready to get a lot of feedback on my paper but I did not get much. I think that peer editing each other's paper is  waste of time because we are not hard enough on each other. If my paper is shitty I want someone to tell me that, not sugar coat everything and then when the day comes to turn it in to the teacher it is crap and I get a bad grade so I was kind of upset during class on Wednesday. On top of that I kind of fill picked on in that class because I like to volunteer a lot but whatever. SO then after class I emailed the professor to see if he could give me feedback on my paper because I really want to get a good grade on it and I want to see how I can have a PERFECT paper, but he said no because it was not fair to others. Hmmm well this upset me even more because I was going out of my way for help from him since he is always preaching about how helpful he is and I really really really wanted YOUR help Mr. but you said no. I really wanted to be like "well it is not my fault my classmates bullshit there way around class and do not ask for help unlike me. I am sorry that I am a slower learner but I would really appreciate your help". Anyways this week has just been a horrible week and this class did not make it any better so yee. I just thlogged my life away.

Thloggg #2

Whoa I am seriously so glad this week is over. Although my weekend was great because I got to come home and spend time with my family, this week was very frustrating. I feel like I am taking on way too much that I can handle in life right now but let’s see how it goes. Now that I am done venting I will go on with my thlog.

Well besides writing about what we learned in class this week or through our readings, I want to focus today’s blog on what I like about this class and what I found helpful. I really enjoy our daily blogs in the beginning of class because it really helps me get my life together real quick and get my thoughts out and down on paper (online paper) but I am really fond of our weekly tips from Zack. This might sound stupid BUT this week when Zack gave us the simple tip of reading over our week I really started to think about my entire college experience. I have always been told by teachers to read over my paper and to read it out loud because there are a lot of simple mistakes that could have been avoided. It is one thing to skim through a paper but it is another to actually read it carefully and then read it out loud to hear what you wrote (reading it out loud does make a difference). So when Zack said this and I started thinking about my past writings I kind of felt bad because I have always been told that I am a great writer but that I make a lot of careless little mistakes because I do not read over my work which is completely TRUE. So I really appreciated this feedback from Zack because I kind of felt like he was talking to me in particular so this is definitely something I want to work on more this quarter because I have many classes that require writing and I completely want to give it my best. That means no procrastinating and actually reading over my work.

Another thing I want to bring up that we learned this week was the difference between hyphens and dashes. Although this sounds like something so simple that everyone should know, this is not the case. I actually did not know there was a difference until Wednesday. I learned that hyphens are to connect two words that cannot stand alone in the sentence. For example, 18-year olds or on-campus. These are words that basically need each other to make sense in a sentence. On the other hand, dashes are used for somewhat of a pause, like a comma or a thought break.

PB1b

Casandra Phillips

01/13/2016

PB1b

PB1B: Inspecting Genre Generators

SCIgen: pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen:

The more I read into the SCIgen program the more confused and bored I got. It sounded exactly like a

Scientific study and research paper with the same structures and conventions. It starts off with the introduction that presents us with the theory and analysis of the entire paper. Then it moves onto presenting the hypothesis with background information on what the entire scientific paper is about, with this follows the related work and presents the models made to represent this work following with the results and conclusion of your work. Although this paper is entirely fake and confusing because it is all bs, it still looks and sounds like a professional scientist wrote it and this is all an actual scientific study. It uses all these intellectual words that I can’t even pronounce, graphs, bars, tables, etc. which allows the reader to feel like what is written is actually a legitimate paper.

I think that what is happening in this website helps us better understand how the genre of scientific articles or research papers work. It shows the audience the specific structure and conventions it must have to be a “good” research paper.

Comic strips: pandyland.net/random:

I think that these comic strips were the best conventions to focus on out of all the four websites we got to look into. I think that they were very comical, blunt and real. I think that someone must have background knowledge about what the comic strip / meme is about before they can really understand the sarcasm it has in it or the joke it is trying to point out. There are a few that I found kind of inappropriate as well but that is what made them hilarious because they were so true! This reminded me of an assignment I went over for the PB1A. In the blog we gave for PB1a there was a classmate named Edwin that wrote about comic strips and he brought up the very important point that we must know the background history of the joke before actually understanding it. Therefore, there are a few comic strips that caught my eyes because they proved exactly what my point is about the background and understanding everything.

Some of the memes I found hilarious were; the pregnancy one about the lady telling her husband that she feels sick of him and she does not know whether it is him or his baby he is caring, the Kermit “none of my business” one and the racist Muslim one because it just shows how stupid are about other cultures and people. Again, I think that what is happening in this website with these comic strips and memes help us better understand the genre of comedy writing pieces and how they should be structured.

Memes: memegenerator.net:

I have never been much of the person who actually created any memes, instead I am just the person who people send them to and I laugh my ass off because they are so stupid. However, I did not find these memes very amusing. I think that for the most part they were kind of old and I did not recognize much of the background on them so I did not understand the joke. The conventions for memes were all there though, they all had a very famous/ popular picture and straight forward, short text.

http://songlyricsgenerator.com/songwriting.php:

I found various genre generators on google once I knew what a good website for this project would look like and I was very surprised with what I found. I never really thought stuff like this existed so running into so many websites was kind of trippy. One website I looked into particularly was the song lyric generator. I think that this website shows us the conventions these genres of music have individually and what makes them so different. As a song in general they all must have a chorus and various versus, but each genre within has its own conventions. I compared break-up songs to love songs through this website and my findings were just really interesting. In the break-up songs no matter what story I wrote there was always a line in there that said they were ready to move on and they did not need this person anymore. On the other hand, the love song spoke all about how much they would never want to be without the person. I then looked into real songs after this and I found that a break-up song (Miley Cyrus: The Climb) spoke about her moving on without this person because she did not need him anymore. This just shows us how conventions for this genre are very strict yet can be said in many different ways.

PB1A

01/10/2016

PB1A: How Sorority Business is Handled

Being in a sorority is not all fall in games. Joining the Greek life is a type of life style, a unique business hustle. Many people have negative stereotypes over Greek life and what we do but we are more than just a party person. As a proud sister of Sigma Theta Psi Multicultural Sorority Inc., I have learned how to become a sister, a spokesperson, a leader and most importantly a businesswomen. Holding positions and trying to get our name out there and recognized is a very huge part on how we write certain things.

If it is not obvious by now, the genre I decided to focus on is sorority business and casual material. As a proud sister of Sigma Theta Psi Multicultural Sorority Inc. I must learn how to alter my communication skills to direct the audience I am addressing and under the circumstances I am addressing them for. I want to focus specifically on some positions I have held which would be; step and stroll mistress and National Board communication chair.

All three of these chairs have similar features and structures to them but as they begin to go more in depth you start to see the difference between them even though they are all addressing the same address. When writing emails out to my chapter, I will always great sisters before I start anything. It will be a formal greeting with a little bit of personality into it, for example, something I might say as a greeting would be:

Good Evening Lovely Sisters and Ladies of Psi,

I hope all my lovely ladies are doing great today and are excited for…….Before I begin with any details I would like to wish all sisters a lovely Founders weekend and I hope to see you all soon. I love when we all get together because there aren’t any others that can rep that purple, black and gold with this fierceness so let’s be OWT sisters! With that being said I would like to…….

Itinerary: …….

Sincerely,

Kappa’s Baby Butterfly

This is an outline of an email I would send out to my chapter which is the girls I go to school with. My chapter does not include sisters from outside chapter (outside schools) or our National Board which is created by alumni’s who continue to be involved in our sorority but also the ones who oversee and run ALL chapters. If I were to send my National Board an email it would definitely be more formal business than casual. There emails look a little like this:

Good Evening Lovely National Board Sisters,

I hope that all is well and National Board is progressing well every day. I am writing this email today on behalf of Kappa Chapter to let National Board know about our ………event and would like to get it approved……

Best,

Casandra Irene Phillips

Kappa Chapter

Step and Stroll Mistress 2015-2016

Epsilon Line Spring 2015

This would basically be an outline for an email I would send to National Board. There is definitely a difference with the personality I put in to each email and the tone I present. I am able to have a bit more fun and personalize my chapter emails because they are just going to my chapter, but National Board emails are always very strict and straight to the point since they are going to the women who run our chapter and are later shared with other chapters once approved.

There is also many differences within chairs regardless of who we are sending them to. As step and Stroll Mistress I have the advantage of making my emails as personal and free as I’d like. My chair does not really handle the business aspect of the chapter and most of my emails are sent to remind sisters of practices and events so they do not have to be very business structured, instead they are very casual. I do this in order to persuade sisters to actually read my emails and look forward to going to practice. Most of the emails we get throughout the day are all in regards to work we have to do and workshops we have to complete so for the most part those emails are ignored and deleted. In other hands, I’ve actually had sisters tell me that they save my emails because they are so funny and interesting. When I send out emails about my chair I tend to use a lot of emojis, memes, and long greetings to remind sisters that this chapter is not all business material and we can have fun with the work we put in.

In other hands, I am also National Board Communicator. These emails are always very short and straight to the point, I also do not personalize the greetings very much. Instead I quickly wish them the best and then communicate what I had to communicate and cut the email short. This is done because we know that those sisters who are on National Board have a very busy life with their careers, families, grad schooling, etc. so we do not wish to take up much of their time. These emails are also always to handle business between a chapter and the entire board so there is no time to waste with making a fun email, instead it is tried to be as structured as possible.

In general these emails just prove how much being in a sorority teaches you. I have learned how to write emails that are strictly business, emails that are casual and emails that are business casual, all depending on who my audience is and what point I am trying to make with my email. 

Thlogging Time!!!! Week 1

01/11/2016

The first week of the quarter is always crazy and stressing but I always try to go into my quarters optimistic and excited about all my new classes. I feel like this quarter in particular I am trying really hard to stay strong with so much on my plate. My first time taking 16 units with a job and internship as well as sorority business. I already feel stressed and it is burly week 2 but I am prepared to tackle whatever comes my way this quarter. ,

This week was very interesting. I never really pictured a Writing 2 class to be this exciting and upbeat as it is, I really thought it was going to be another teacher just standing in front of class lecturing on writing rules but it really is not. I was really nervous going into this class at first because I believed it to be very strict and boring but this week has proven me wrong.

I think that starting the class off with blogging is the best way to start class. We are able to get all our thoughts down for the class and prepare ourselves for the rest of the day. Being able to release our thoughts before class and relax is a very unique way to start such a challenging class but it allows us to be very open- minded and able to express our thoughts on paper. I also think that the way our professor creates our assignments is a very exciting way to learn new things.

This week to be exact I learned what genres meant in writing and how to focus this in our writing for our next paper. I think that the scary movies and timed free-writes were a great and interesting way to break down and learn what genres really are and how we can work with them a little better now.

Another assignment that I found interesting was our reading “Spaces for Writing”. So far this has been my favorite writing due to the way they point out the different types of writing professors. There is the professors who just focuses on rules and the professor who is just interested in fabulousness, and then there are those like my professor who wants a little bit of both. For this exact reason I am ready and prepared for what this class has to offer me. 

Who Am I?

Casandra Phillips

01/05/2016

I am a very simple person, very difficult to understand but simple for the most part. I am 19 years old, a sophomore, double major in Sociology and Chicano/a Studies and thinking of triple majoring in Feminist Studies. I am originally from South Central or South LA, however you want to call it, and I live with my mom, grandma and cousin.

Growing up I had a very good childhood but things took a very drastic change once I got to high school. In high school I lost many people who I would have never seen my life without. Over the time span of 4 years I have lost 8 people and it has been a very difficult time but I made it. With so many losses I still graduated second top of the class with principal honors, got into one of the best universities and continue to kick ass.

On top of trying my best in school, I am also very passionate about social justice so I try to participate in as much as possible. I’m particularly involved with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault so I am currently working with the Domestic Violence Solution of Santa Barbara.

I am very involved with both my school and internship but on top of that I also spend most of my time with my sorority. I am a sister of Sigma Theta Psi Multicultural Sorority inc, and I am the step and stroll mistress. I love to dance so being the step and stroll mistress allows me to do all of the dances for our chapter and to be creative as I want to be. It is the best job ever because it is a legit thing I have do but for my chapter but it is also I am something strongly passionate about and enjoy doing. So I basically love my job.

I am excited for everything I am doing here in college and I cannot wait to graduate and start my future. I know many people do not know what they want to do when they are older but I literally have my life planned year by year. I have down to when I want to do a certain job, to how many years I want to spend in it, down to my future family, house, etc. I enjoy planning so planning my life out is simply something I must do in order to keep my life together. I am very excited for my future and every tomorrow is just a day closer.