Lesson #11

1) On your blog, write about your experience summarizing the reading (500 words)



And what an experience it has been! Finding electronic articles for my research paper was a no-brainer, it was very easy. However, since I do not have access to a significant library, finding a non-electronic source proved to be a little more difficult. I browsed through my mother's stash of magazines and none of them related to my research topic (which, by the way, has to do with the effect of the media on its female viewers). I then went "house-hopping" and asked for up-to-date magazines related to my research topic. I finally came across a magazine that had a relevant article. The article did not necessarily agree with my thesis, however, inadvertently, it did support it. I’ve learned that when I’m looking for a particular article to support my thesis, I don’t need to find an article that agrees with me. Opposing views can prove my point just as well. All one needs is an open mind and perseverance. I suppose as these research papers continue, I'll keep running into road blocks and hang ups, but I'll learn how to trouble-shoot that way.
Next year I will not be living in a bush village, I’ll be living in a city where there are several public libraries (and a few private ones). I’m looking forward to all of the tangible research I’ll be able to do there. I’ve only been inside a real library once, and it was a very small one, but it was still a very nice one. Some day I would love to walk inside of a HUGE library and spend an entire day under a pile of books.
So many times I’ve been hung up on writers-block with my head in my hands. My high school teacher tells me just to keep writing. He says as long as I’m writing something I’m not wasting time, so I’ve learned to write whatever pops into my head and it’s really helping me to overcome the helpless feeling of writers-block. It feels awful to be sitting and staring at a blank screen when the deadline clock is ticking away. But I guess that’s part of the adrenalin of writing, isn’t it? Most of us seem to perform better under pressure.
I can definitely say that I’m better at summarizing and annotating articles than I was at the beginning of this course. I’ve learned different ways to approach writing-pieces, such as reading as a believer and a doubter. And I never thought it possible to read and reread the same articles over and over again as much as I have been, but it really does help and it improves my writing. I’m still learning the fine art of it, but it I keep at it than one day I’ll be good at it.

One thing that is confusing me a bit about this particular assignment is my instructor is asking for summaries with a works cited page and copies of the annotated articles. Are summaries and annotations the same thing? If anyone could help me I would greatly appreciate it.