Writer's Journal #1

In my past writing experiences, I have not written many research papers. The last research paper I ever wrote was probably in school my junior or senior year of high school. The topics I wrote about in high school were pretty vague and open ended and had a specific prompt assigned by my teacher where I had to find my own sources and research. It has been a while since I’ve done any so I do not remember the specific details of what they were about. My high school research papers were about 4-5 pages long each. I do currently write as part of my job though. I do the blog content for an accounting firm. This requires doing research on accounting and many other topics such as tax preparation and bookkeeping and give it my own spin for our blog. I am not educated in these areas so I constantly have to be doing research. These research blog posts are generally about two pages long. I also have my own little blog where I write about different topics related to alternative health and other related topics. In these blog posts I have to do some research because although I know some details I do not know every part of the scientific reasoning and evidence behind what I’m writing about. I am not a certified doctor in no way so I need the already published research to help me write a stronger blog post.

In all my research writing experiences I have learned many valuable lessons on proper citing as well as how to make already known ideas into my own ideas. I think this class will help me become more knowledgeable on how to write research papers as well as help me make my writing more educated. I really hope this class teaches me how to be a better writer. I formally took the ENG 101 course and it helped me to be able to express myself in the more narrative type style. I think this course will be a lot like an advanced version of my high school English courses in the past. I will probably be assigned projects and topics and then will be expected to write based off of that. I hope that I also am able to learn how to find good research that is accurate. I sometimes struggle with writing strong content and I use a lot of personal pronouns when I write. I’m excited to see how this course will go about that.

This course is kind of challenging due to the many writer’s journals we are assigned to do but also I can see how it is valuable. I am excited to build my writing portfolio online versus on paper. This way I can showcase my writing to my future recruiters and also see how far I’ve come as a writer. I think paper can get lost and thrown away but a website can be forever present in a nice file.