Vanessa Ramos

This blog is dedicated for my RWS 1302 class. This is were my assignments will be posted. I am a political science major at the Unniversity of Texas at El Paso.

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Fair Use Statement

The content created and/or utilized in this website by Vanessa Ramos is for non-commercial, educational purposes only. Any opinions expressed therein are those of Vanessa Ramos alone.

All text, data, art, graphics, code or hyperlinks in this website are either original, directly linked to original sources, used in good faith under academic “fair use,” or, to the best of my knowledge, are non-copyright. In case of questions about copyright or intellectual property rights, please contact Vanessa Ramos, and if need be, they will be removed.

Any commercial or advertising graphics and text reproduced or displayed in any way are for educational purposes only and do not imply endorsement by the University of Texas at El Paso, the UTEP English Department, the UTEP RWS-UP Program, or the website’s creator. No payment or compensation of any kind has been received or solicited for the display of any link, graphic, text, or other specific content in this website.

All original content is the intellectual property of Vanessa Ramos and permission and acknowledgment are required for any reproduction or modification.

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Advise for Future Students

Hello incoming student. The course that you are currently taking is the RWS 1302, this is going to be a very informational class. Don’t be fool and think “this is going to be a piece of pie” just because your RWS 1301 was. This course can get a bit challenging with so many assignments to do. Although the assignments are not so hard they are time consuming. This class really does teach you value your time for each assignments. If you ever need any help with ANYTHING go and talk to your professor about the assignment, don’t be scared they don’t bite I promise. Remember that all your assignments will be due on a very specific time and if you miss the deadline you will get a zero.  Don’t be scared of the major assignments they might sound complicated but they are really most of this assignments are done by part and as long as you complete each part of the assignments you will be fine. Don’t forget that you are going to be living off Tumblr for this course, meaning most of your assignments will be on Tumblr. This is going to be a wonderful semester for you as long as you take your time with your assignments and turn them in on time. I have faith in you my young padawan.

[vanenessa30-blog]

Reflection: Visual Argument

Prior to completing this assignments, I had an idea what this was going to deal with. Since this had been part of my class a few semesters back. The visual argument takes time and dedications; it takes a lot of research. Although this assignment is not an easy task I felt like I did accomplish the purpose of the assignment, even though I know that I could have done so much better. With this assignment I learned a few lessons. The first one is NEVER do group work, there’s only a few groups that will help you do the assignment most groups leaves the work load to one individual. Another thing that I learned is that I am more of an independent person this could be good and bad. It could be good because I don’t have to be depending on other and it could be bad because when coming to communicating with others won’t go as great. I am usually terrified of presenting projects, but for some reason I was not as nervous as I usually am. This project helped me practice my fear of talking in front of my audience, it was a great experience and I wish that we could have done this more often. For this particular assignment I felt as that I hit the high points of the assignments, but didn’t focus so much on the smaller arts of the assignments and that was not good for my grade. My writing for this assignment was a little more advanced since it was mostly scientific terms (which I have not so much knowledge on this field) the terms started to become simpler and faster to pick up on as I kept on doing my research and at the end of the assignment I felt as if I knew everything that I had to know about Mitochondria. My revision for this particular example was good in my opinion but what I would do is take a little bit more time to read the rubric and see what I would be need to do. For this assignment it was all the reading that helped me to complete this assignment. This assignment took a piece of every reading that we had to do this semester and in a way got us prepared for this assignment.

9I felt like this when i was doing my AVA project since i didn’t know anything about science and I had to do so much research on Mitochondria.0

[vanenessa30-blog]

Reflection: Literature Review

Prior to doing this assignment I didn’t know what it was. I remember that at the beginning of the semester Professor Villa had mention the assignment, but other than that I had never heard those two words side by side. The literature review in my opinion was the most difficult of all the assignments. In the process of doing the assignment I felt as if I was I was doing the assignment completely wrong, but I continued doing it as it to turn something in. When I turned in the assignment I felt like I had done a good job on the assignment and I felt like I had met the criteria. One thing that I learned from this assignment was to use the writing center, they were very helpful on the feedback they are there to help and no one should be scared to go, these skills are going to help me when I have major assignments such as the Literature Review for my other major classes. One particular skill that I practice was to meet with my professor and getting feedback from the professor. This was the most helpful thing from the whole requirement from this assignment. Although at first I felt terrified I knew that I had to do it and I am glad that I had such a great experience. Now that I see how professor and students work I will start to talk to my professors when I need help, they are there to help and give you advise and help you advancing in your career. I felt as if I met the criteria I felt that I did a pretty decent job on this assignment even though it was extremely time consuming. At first writing for this assignment was completely trash but as I started to do all the assignment requirements. I felt that this assignment became easier to write with all the feedback that I kept on getting from all the times that I went to the writing center and ESPECIALLY going to the professor conference.

(there was so much research that I had todo for this assignment this is just the perfect GIF to describe how i was.)

[vanenessa30-blog]

Reflection: Genre Analysis

I had some knowledge of this assignment before since I had to write one for my previous RWS class, but obviously this was a more difficult assignment. From all the major assignments I felt as if this one was the most difficult and also this was my lowest grade from all the major assignments. I felt that I did not accomplish this assignment and if I did that it was very boarder line achievement since I did not go so much in depth. What I learned from this assignment was to not procrastinate I did this assignment last minute and that was shown on my grade and it was not something that I am proud of (I just didn’t know how to do this assignment since it was the first major assignment of the class). After these assignments I got the idea that I had to take my time with the assignments if I wanted to get good grades and that’s what I did and my grades changed significantly. With this assignment I practice how to be more detailed with my writing, very very detailed. This will help me in future assignment as with my writing and my observational skills. The criteria (even though it was simple) of this assignments were not met with my writing I was not detailed enough with anything that I wrote. Like I said at the beginning of the post I didn’t really take my time with this assignment. My writing was obstructed because I didn’t know what to do, all I knew was that I had to go really in depth descriptions. My revision wasn’t affective since it was such rushed assignment, what I would do to make it more affective would be to take my time with it and revise it. If I would’ve put in more time I am certain that I would’ve gotten a better grade. What helped me out the most was the the handbook, it gave the students an idea of how the assignment should be done.

(I know that I could’ve done better on this assignment, although i am not a big fan of drake he is saying what i was thinking.)

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Course Reading Response

When I entered this class I didn’t expect to do any reading, because of my previous RWS class didn’t require it. Then I found out that we had to purchase two books that’s when I knew that. The readings were a great thing, although I am not a big fan of reading they surpassed my expectations. The readings were extremely helpful and gave really good guidelines to all the assignments that we had to do throughout the semester. Through out the semester we learned about many different things such as; different genres, author approach, how to ask effective e questing, what are good questions, about summaries and the difference in the19th and 21st century writing. Yancey really made an impact on me when I read her article, knowing how technology changed the way writing is done. Not only are writings are done on the traditional paper and pen, but also in things such as blog and social media. Now that I know this I have it in mind that I am always practicing it with social media. The readings throughout the semester went hand in hand. Take for example for the literature review we had to have 3 to 4 main questions that we had to base our whole assignment on and the reading for that week was chapter 3 and 4 which explained how to ask effective questions and what are good questions. As the semester continued I figured that every time we were assigned a reading we were going to have an assignment. I started to focus on the more important things and started to ignore the less important things and I also became lazier to read each time. There were some really great readings that were assigned this semester, but the one this found the least intriguing was the summary one (chapters 5 and 6) this was because summaries are one thing although I did learn new things from reading these chapters I just didn’t feel astonished as with the other ones. As for my favorite reading was Yancey it was long but intriguing I really learned many new things from that article and it was not something hard to read. The one things from the reading that I would do is the stories at the beginning of the chapter to be removed. This is because I never read them and I jumped into the content. I felt as if they were put in the book just to take up space and honestly not reading them didn’t change affect my grade. Overall the reading were very informational and helpful with the assignments.

(How i felt throughout the semester)

[lucy-enriquez44-deactivated2017]

Reflection

Since the semester is about to end , I learn so many things each week. Mostly likely I learn how to become a better writer as well to understand each type of analysis, genres and summaries. I liked each week but only 3 weeks helped me so much and will continue to help me in the future. From week 1 to the last week it changed in so many ways because at the beginning of the semester i did not know how to do my assignments and was completely lost most of the time.

week 2 http://lucy-enriquez44.tumblr.com/post/149656330705/reading-response 

week 3 http://lucy-enriquez44.tumblr.com/post/149978800830/response-reading-3

week 6 http://lucy-enriquez44.tumblr.com/post/150937187675/reading-response

I selected this three top post because these posts help me in so many way during the semester especially for my papers. Also they are going to help me in the future because i will be analyzing stuff every day also having to come up with good questions . Especially since my career will be in the medical field and will be using it everyday. 

multimodality help me so much because i got all my information for my papers in social media as well getting in contact with some doctors by email. Most important on to keep in touch with professors and is easier to do homework. 

Did not like tumblr that much because im not a big fan of blog pages .It was easier to do the assignments here that in blackboard but at the same time had a little bit of problems using tumblr. I sed tumblr to communicate with my classmates instead of blackboard because i get the notifications faster than in blacboard. Also what i would change about tumblr is the add post they have as well putting the accounts on private. That way we are approve certain people other than that tumblr is kinda easy to use.

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hey lucy, i liked your post, i could really relate to it a lot. i totally get what you mean by you learned more and more through out the weeks in this class i felt to like 3 really helped me out as well. during the weeks of the lit review and general analysis were pretty intense but i really enjoyed the work that came out at the end. i also thought the same when you said that this tumblr account was a lot easier then using blackboard. blackboard can be a little tricky to figure out sometimes and tumblr made that easier for sure. nice gif by the way loved that movie!

[vanenessa30-blog]

This semester has been good and I agree with this and I also learned so much each week. Everything did change throughout the semester. Your post has been great through out the semester. Multimedia was amazing and opened so many odors to my education and even better for my writing. Tumblr wasn’t for everyone but it was pretty great as an experience. I am not the biggest fan either but I had to be used. The only reason was for educational purposes.  Really liked your post I really liked your GIF it’s a very emotional movie but really does go with your post.

[tommygarcia01-blog]

W15 - Tumblr Post (Reading Response)

In this article it seems as if they are explaining the advantages and disadvantages of Developing Multimodal Academic Literacies among College Freshmen. They are able to develop it in many ways, and I have pulled two excerpts from the article to show the intent. “ I’m sure we still don’t know everything GarageBand can do! Even with our limited knowledge, we made a pretty awesome beat mix. We couldn’t stop listening to it and although some of the parts are a little rough still, we’re very excited about it….I ended up playing around with the beat for almost 2 hours and came out of it with less than 2 minutes of music…I’m actually not even sure if it’s a minute long. This made me think about how long it must take DJs to make music on actual turntable.” This especially related to me because I am a DJ as mentioned in posts long ago and it is very touching to see the difficulty of turntablism being appreciated. Even starting in college as freshman is really awesome to see skills being developed in that time span. As mentioned in the article, while presented these different types of software for Dj-ing, students learned to appreciate what was going on even more because of the struggle that they were put through for only 30 minutes. Also stated, “academic settings allow students to explore what happens when different kinds of cultural knowledges encounter a range of genres, modes, and approaches for presenting information. As such, the use of multimodal texts within academic literacies may open up ways of thinking not ordinarily afforded by traditional texts.” This exactly sums up the experience of doing something new especially while completing tumblr and implementing gifs to show feelings. This connects to my discipline because in electrical engineering equipment and sound for DJ’s is actually studied in the field, using signal processing and etc. It gains a more robust understanding because we have been using it for a long time doing these tumblr posts. 

This is how most college freshman feel when teachers try to develop skills for them. 

[vanenessa30-blog]

That is pretty amazing that you are a DJ that it is something super surprising and unexpected and I know that you have posted that but I just didn’t really read your posts. I like how you connected this with the reading how you are going with the range of genres, modes, and approaches for presenting information. That’s pretty awesome that you’re a freshman and be so creative not to be rude a y saying that. I love the GIF that made me laugh. That is how I felt in my first semester and somehow I passed but I did.

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Tumblr Reflection

From the beginning of the semester to the ending of the semester has changed dramatically. At the beginning I was so focused and determine and then as the semester went along I started to get busier and less determine.

Multimodal was something new to me and that has changed the way that I write. When I was told that I needed to use an image while writing and posting on tumblr I found that was extremely weir but as the time passed on if I wouldn’t post an images the text wouldn’t have emotion.

http://vanenessa30.tumblr.com/post/151274198897/w7-reading-response

This has to be my top favorite post because the summary was something that helped mw throughout the semester. This was the most helpful reading because summary has been something I always have found something hard to write.

http://vanenessa30.tumblr.com/post/152298749482/advance-visual-argument-proposal

Although this was something of what to do it was something that started me off with my project. It is one of my favorite because I love the Gif that I used. That is how I felt like through out the semester.  The AVA helped me how too write and be creative with what I did.

http://vanenessa30.tumblr.com/post/149532262552/introduction

I liked this post because I got to write about myself and I find that It’s easier to write about something that I have known about myself. The introduction was just a great way to start the writing of the semester. Writing has always something that I find hard to do I would say that its my weakest subject.

In all honesty I thought that Tumblr was something horrible since I had heard so many bad things about it. I was proven wrong since I ended up liking Tumblr, but I am just going to keep it for the educational purposes not for personal pleasure. The only thing that I would change is to be more specific on what we should writing because everyone need direction in their writing.

(this is how i felt about tumblr)

[vanenessa30-blog]

week 15 reading response

This week’s reading was Developing Multimodal Literacies Among College Freshmen by Gloria Jacobs. This was a study to make students to use multimodal text to see whether the students would improve in their writing. The results were that the students were enjoying writing and weren’t dreading writing the traditional way. This multimodal text made the students feel like they had a bit more freedom while writing. Since social media is a major part of today’s society it is easy to say that multimodal text is as important to teach and learn as the traditional writing. The author states that ‘Students also engaged in the higher order thinking skills of summarization, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation in order to read and understand the textual resources and create the multimodal text.” What Jacobs was saying was that this makes the students think more and makes them more creative than what they already are. Technology is changing everything as we have read even writing. As political science major I feel that it’s important because there’s so much writing and reading in my field. I feel that I should be prepare if a change of the ways that the laws are written. They might even comes as multimodal text.

(How I felt after knowing the conclusion of the study)

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AK W12 Read response

(Focus is on Chapter 8)

I think we all have our own schemas of what an “argument” is. Most of us probably imagine two people yelling at each other. Others may imagine political debates. Myself, I’m thinking of two people going back and forth about which is better; chocolate or strawberry, and the stupidity behind the logic of the one who simply argues better is the winner. Clearly neither is wrong, it’s only a matter of perspective. But similar types of arguments go on all the time. Argument from an academic perspective is a different story.

(Pointless argument in a nutshell)

Chapter 8 goes into detail regarding the difference between say, the Jones family arguing (again) at 3am over dirty dishes…

(The Jones’s at 3am…in an alternate universe where the Sun is up at 3am)

…versus arguing for positive change. So argument is obviously more than just shouting at each other. Rather, it is for the most part taking a stance on something, and logically advocating for that side of the issue using evidence. There are several common purposes for arguments listed in the chapter. The ones I felt were most applicable given our current assignment are:

1.    to persuade others to think or act

2.    to propose a solution to a problem

3.    to suggest a policy or proposal for future action

There are also several criteria listed for effective arguments. The one I like the most is the need for significance. Debates of which “thing” is better is not significant. Arguing for something that has an impact on the community, or people’s lives, is significant.

The part of the chapter that interested me the most is “Avoiding Logical Fallacies.” This is because I can recall specific examples of the three common types. However, I did not know the actual terminology until now. The one I see the most of is hasty generalization.

As a criminal justice major, I get to do a lot of research and reports on related issues. One issue that is important to me is gun rights. It is something I usually cannot write about academically due to its overuse…and professors generally frown upon gun rights topics. But there are so many aspects about gun rights that require individual attention, and effective argument will be a critical component. There is a lot of hasty generalization, and post hoc based rhetoric regarding guns, and so in the event I find myself involved in some sort of pro-gun advocacy situation, it helps to not only know how to effectively argue, but to recognize and mitigate against such fallacies.

[vanenessa30-blog]

We all do have our own schemas about what an argument is. For me personally think of people yelling at each other. The example about what is better strawberry and chocolate, is perfect and yes it is a matter a perspective. The matter of fact is that whoever makes a better statement will win the argument. It’s really unfortunate that you can’t write about guns it is one of the biggest arguments that has been going on in the United States for a long time .I really love your summary explains in detail what an argument and what it’s purpose it, you really did an excellent job!

(I chose this GIF because you did an excellent job with the reading response.)

[hellorebeccathings-blog]

WEEK 12 READING RESPONSE

This week reading response is based on chapter 8 and 9 of WIT. In other to provide strategies for an effective argument, chapter 8 analyzed the following ideas: correcting common myths about arguments, what is an argument? Purpose of arguments, criteria for effective arguments, and future criteria for effective argument: avoiding logical fallacies. The most interesting part of this chapter is Myth #2: Argument involving only highly debated issues. I like this part of the reading because it actually changed my perception about my topic for the AVA assignment. I was about talking to professor Jasmine about changing my topic but now I feel no need for that. I now know that, any topic can be argued. It’s all about research. Trying to persuade and not to win.

This Gif is to emphasis that, “people can argue about nearly everything” 

Chapter 9 discuses Argument construction. It analysis is shaped around the following ideas: Questions that shape arguments, inductive and deductive reasoning, argument structure, stasis theory, classical argument structure, toulmin argument structure, and Rogerian argument structure.   What I like the most about this chapter is its ability to provide guild lines on how arguments could be constructed by analyzing various structure appropriate for different forms of argument. As an economics major, this week readings has taught me how to present my ideas to gain acceptance. Knowing now that argument is not about winning but about persuading makes me think about my audience for the AVA assignment. Considering their caliber, I keep thinking of the perfect argument structure to use in order to convince them. However, chapter 8 & 9 has upgraded my understand of the AVA assignment and I think I now understand the direction to take on it.

I am ready to persuade my audience 

[vanenessa30-blog]

This is a great summary. I really enjoyed that you emphasized that it is not about winning but about persuasion and like you said chapter 8 tells you the purpose of an argument and it is about persuasion. I am glad that you don’t have to change your topic for the AVA project, that would have been a lot of work for you. Chapter 9 gives that wonderful table with the questions that shape the argument. I agree with you about chapter nine it is a great guide for creating a great argument. I really enjoyed the GIF that you used it is wonderful.  

(I used this GIF because you understood the reading and it will help you with your AVA project.)

[vanenessa30-blog]

Reading Response Week 12

Chapter 8 talks about framing arguments. I was surprise that there were so many myths about Arguments that I thought were facts about arguments. The myth that stood out the most was that arguments don’t just have pros and cons and that something that I had always seen as the main idea of arguments. The chapter starts with explaining what an argument is and continues to define the purpose of an argument. There are various purposes of arguments some being to persuade, communicate research and conclusions, and to raise questions The chapter also talks about the different types of arguments. The casual argument is to explain why things are the way that they are. Proposal Arguments is to propose a a solution for a problem or solution. Definitional arguments primary to define a new term expanding the definition of an establish term or concept. Chapter 9 talked about constructing arguments. In Table 9.1 it gave many pointer of questions that shape arguments. The chapter also talks about Inductive and Deductive Reasoning. It also talks about the Toulmin argument structure which involves six components which are claim, evidence, warrant, backing, qualifier and rebuttal. As a political science major and my main goal is to become a lawyer it is easily related. To be a good lawyer you need to have the ability to pursue people with your arguments. After reading this I have more knowledge about arguments and structuring them. 

This shows how much work a person has to put in to make a good argument.

[tommygarcia01-blog]

Reading Response W11

Yancy’s  take on “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key” makes this a surprising article to read about. It addresses the ideologies of how writing was in multiple times in the past, to how it compares to the current expression of writing. It explains how writing is now expressed through social media, blogs, through the internet and etc. The emerge of technology creates more outlets for writing to be used, and the creativity is expanding dramatically. Yancy mentions in the past how the printing press gave the ability for people to read. In the 21st century less people read, yet reading is done in a more contemporary way such as reading Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram post rather than reading books, newspapers like the “traditional way”. This post definitely has connecting to major ( Electrical Engineering) because I have been on the edge of this topic for weeks now, therefore I can relate what the author is saying. As seen in the post for the literature review and visual arguement topic proposal, I have also mentioned how the academic productivity among students has increased with the emergence of technology within and outside of the classroom and that relates to this as well. The pedagogy mentioned in the post is important to note and how it differs from today. The emerge of technology has also created other boundaries for other subjects other than writing and reading, and it leads to questions such as: What else will technology do for us? How does it empower us more? Or Does it? I like that at the end of the article the author adds site note for the limitations of the article, I went along to see the other readings she mentioned as well.

The above gif explains exactly what is going on in the article, books are just as important.  

[vanenessa30-blog]

That is a really amazing reading response. I really liked how you explained the past writing as traditional, today is all based on social media and that is the way that many people express themselves and in a way it is a good way but it is also making people less common to read scholars articles. Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter are great outlets to communicate with the outside world. It’s great that you actually get to connect with your major. I really like how you linked it together and the GIF that you used was more than perfect for the things that you wrote.

[thepaulinasosa-blog]

Reading Response

Kathleen Blake Yanceys article “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key” talks about something that affects us all. In the article she writes about the history of writing and the differences of the 19th and 20th century writing. I think it’s incredibly true about how she says that most people nowadays barely read and when they do it’s through social media. She brings up examples, but I find it very relatable, because I catch myself only getting any reading done when I’m on social media. I rarely even touch a book unless it’s for a class, I think it’s also a good piece to read because our work is done on social media, Tumblr. This does actually relate to my major too, I remember language teachers always telling me to just go on my social media and follow French natives and stuff like that to really help with my reading in French. So I think when I’m a teacher I would encourage some social media use for educational purposes I mean it’s not all that bad. She also went into some history, but I just learned about the Industrial Age not that long ago in my history class. Overall I think it was very informative and I think it’s gave some tips to help with my writing too. (Me on social media)

[vanenessa30-blog]

Wonderful reading response! I am the same way with books I will not get near one even less read one unless it is for a class. Today’s generation is could really use social media in a learning perspective, but then again it does have it pros and cons. People do get distracted with social media and that could get in the way of a person’s leaning experience.That is so cool how they told you to go follow native French, I bet that it is better than google translate and not to mention with now in days technology you can actually communicate with the person through social media and you can practice your French and that will totally help you. That is a perfect GIF for this reading response.

[vanenessa30-blog]

Yancey

Yancey’s “Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key” the article talked about how there was traditional writing on paper in the 19th century and how in the 21st century there is so many other ways of writing with new technology available including social media and blogs. It used to be that writing was more of a school thing rather than something “fun”. Rather than in Today’s generation that it isn’t something mandatory to do but people see as more in as a way to relaxing (blogs). The author also states that, “Richard Lanham, of course, has argued that with the addition of the digital to the set of media in which we compose, delivery takes on a critical role” meaning that technology has taken a turn for the better.

I used this GIF to show that the printing press has changed

As a political science major there is many things that have to be done as researching articles and current events. The current events and scholar articles it is not only seen in traditional books but it is also found on the internet. There are many articles that are written by various sources and this sources have been written by people who have written used the technology. Technology has given us so many advantages as getting our resources.

[vanenessa30-blog]

Advance Visual Argument Proposal

While looking at the options that I have with a political science there hasn’t been many things that have been brought to my attentions, but I have finally chose a topic. I will be talking about how people class societies. I am interested in doing a documentary or a poster. I will be willing to take people in, but I can also work on this by myself.

I chose this GIF because its how what I feel like when the semester is coming to an end and there’s so many assignments to do and i have to get my act together.