To fulfill our requirement of attending one of the University Writing and Research conferences/capstones/symposiums (I don't know which one it is...) I chose to attend one entitled "Writing about TV: The Fake Life of Real Life TV Dramas", moderated by our very own Tina Plottel. I was really surprised at how interesting and engaging this seminar was. It helped that we were able to choose a topic because we could relate our interests to that of the writers'. I could see that the rest of the room followed that same line of thinking, as the population was overwhelmingly female (the TV shows of interest were Grey's Anatomy and Sex and the City). Anyway, this convention thing really helped me think about research papers in a new way. While the length was never a daunting issue for me, there paper's showed me that there is a whole new element of voice and analysis in their paper's that I have never explored. Also, one of the most surprising parts of their papers was the use of first person. A somewhat taboo concept in high school analytical papers, their research papers were almost reliant on their passionate interest and personal experience with their topic. The said on numerous occasions that this was integral to the development and execution of their research paper.
I am really glad that I chose to go to this specific topic meeting, because their insight and analysis of their TV shows paralleled the work I am doing on our current paper analyzing social issues in films. They advised to delve into specific scenes and specific themes, and to not even try to take on researching the entirety of the film. This was great to hear, as taking on my rough draft of this paper left me anxiety-ridden at the thought of having to juggle the entire plot of my film as well as a gigantic social issue. This session also gave me some good foresight of what our final paper will be like, and I am looking forward to it as the writers in my session seem to have really enjoyed their experience.
I chose to attend the conference titled Food as Symbol: The Social Meaning of Meals and Their Preparation. This seminar was really interesting. The two girls that spoke chose cool topics to write their papers on. One wrote about how cookbooks in the 1930s and 40s actually promoted feminism, and the other wrote about our society's fascination with death row inmates' last meals. Not only were the topics interesting, but the girls had some really good research strategies to share. One girl got her main piece of research by looking at the footnotes from an article they read in class. She was able to track down the book through the GW library and used that as the basis for her paper. The other girl could not find a lot of literature on her particular topic, so she met with a librarian who helped her develop a strategy for researching a bunch of different disciplines to support the argument she was trying to make. I found this seminar very helpful and will definitely be using some of these strategies when I write my own paper.
ReplyDeleteI chose to go to the seminar on Harry Potter as Harry Potter was easily my favorite series. It was very interesting to see the author of the paper took the direction of the paper. Both of the authors who spoke (the other one spoke on music) started off with tips and the way they approached their respective essays. Some of the things they said were very helpful. The Harry Potter author said that first, use the UW to develop skills to look at certain texts through a particular lens or theoretical model. The paper is analytic and argumentative and it takes a long time to write this paper and make it good. The Harry Potter author looked at the function of the world Voldemort. The lens she used was semiotic which was the study of signs as symbols and their use or interoperation. She said that it was okay to start at wikipedia and then look at their sources including JSTOR. She questioned how the word Voldemort was interpreted by different people and how that effected each relationship. She analyzed the power relationship between Voldemort and Harry Potter, Dumbledore, Common people, and death eaters, which in the end helps to explain how the name Voldemort becomes so powerful. I picked up some tips from the other author as well. He said that the topic must matter to you, to be flexible, the topic should develop and not simply appear, to ignore practical limitations at first, and fight the power.
ReplyDeleteI attended framing politics through a hip hop lens and i learned alot. The first speaker talked about research not as a tedious job but as something you should want to do to have a good argument in your paper while the second focused more on arguing that you need to do hard work early on in the process of writing so that the final product has the same quality all the way through. I really enjoyed the seminar and found it quite interesting
ReplyDeleteExcellent reflective posts you guys. And also I'd like to thank Sarah for asking a really thoughtful question... to recap for those folks not at this panel. The two women presenting were doing a critique of tv shows, and Sarah's question was regarding your film paper and how do you go about writing about that kind of media. I think Tara's and Samantha's answers were very thoughtful, so I'll do my best to recap: in an analytical paper, you wouldn't just explain the plot of a movie; you would talk about one thing and really get into explaining it. For example, Samantha explained that a chunk of her paper talked about a particular piece of equipment in a Gray's Anatomy scene that provided realism to the scene, even though that particular piece of medical equipment is not used for the actual ailment that was part of the plot.
ReplyDeleteThe symposium is still happening today until 4:40 (the last session starts at 3:50, and there are others at 1 and 2:15), so come by Gelman and learn from your peers!
I attended the conference titled Reading Relationships: Race and Discrimination. The Capstone Conference I attended primarily focused on research and how to obtain good sources. Both speakers mentioned that choosing a topic you are interested in was crucial. Hours and hours of research have to be put into this paper so you have to stay interested in the topic. One speaker said that you shouldn’t be afraid to use a variety of sources and that you should “listen” to what each of your sources has to say. That was really powerful. The second speaker incorporated a lot of rap songs and music that related to his topic of “baby-daddy” culture. I found this really interesting because I would have never considered using music as a source for my research paper. Another aspect the speakers focused on was creating an outline. The speaker mentioned to start with a page full of quotes and then structuring it into an outline. Both speakers mentioned that this paper is different from what you do in high school. It is a research paper not a persuasive essay. They said it was a tough project but as long as you are interested and you have good research techniques, the paper will come easily.
ReplyDeleteI decided to go to the seminar titled Writing about Comics. Although the topic seemed random, the discussion was extremely helpful. The speakers lectured about how they formulated their own research papers, and the techniques they considered while writing. The first speaker briefly explained the process of building an argument and honing in on a specific idea. He described that there is no proper way to develop an argument and there is no harm in waiting to see how a paper may transform. The second speaker, Stacy Buell, stressed the importance of looking at the larger topic and then honing in on a specific idea that relates to this larger idea. She also explained that its important to incorporate ones own voice rather than getting lost in others’ research. Another important piece both speakers emphasized was the importance of making errors. As they both explained, research papers take time, dedication and numerous drafts to perfect. So, I guess this seminar was helpful in that it made me less worried about my own paper and I will definitely consider the techniques they mentioned as I continue to write.
ReplyDeleteIn the 2:30 session, the first presentation was about the role of Women in the Government. The presenter, we'll call her Lady, says that, despite our freedom train of a country, women are discriminated in government. Lady went further into the numbers of women in government claiming that 70% of these women are democrats. Lady suggests raising political awareness for girls at a young age. She also thought about a quota system in the United States. Her advice for writing papers: pick a topic you're actually interested in. The second presenter, we'll call her Derp, used the show Dr. Who to write a paper on British American foreign relations. Derp used a similar way as Lady to pick her topic: interest.
ReplyDeleteI chose to attend the writing session called Writing for Change: Affecting Policy Through the Service Learning Experience, with Lauren Poston as the moderator and Samantha Levison and Elena Kim as the student presenters. I am very glad I chose to go to this session because both speakers provided honest feedback about their writing process. For instance, when Samantha was speaking about her research she mentioned a few important points: figure out why the research matters, evaluate the authors of your research and figure out if/how their opinions and writing is biased, and make defined choices about the direction of your paper. Samantha spoke about choosing a topic that you actually care about, because filling up the 10-12 page requirement means that the writer can expand her ideas out for the entire length. Considering the bias of the authors of the research is also very important because it will change the direction of your own paper and can in turn bias your own viewpoint. She mentioned during the question and answer session that making defined choices for the paper will result in a more developed, thorough essay. She mentioned how she started out with viewing single-sex education in a broad way, but eventually brought in specific pieces of that education like literature, math, and science.
ReplyDeleteElena spoke about her experience working with a transitional housing institute. I thought it was intriguing that although the UW class she was in, and the people she worked with, were children, she chose to write about adults. The best advice she gave was to just start writing, regardless of how developed your paper topic is, know who your audience is (her paper was actually read by the people she worked with and they gave her feedback on it) and to take a strong stance on your paper topic. Elena talked about how she was anxious about her paper being read because she took stances in her paper that might have been perceived at criticism on the social workers she worked with, but that taking that stance as more important than just writing a neutral paper without a strong conclusion.
Hearing these two students speak about their papers and the process was very helpful, and encouraged me to dive head first into my own once we begin working on them. They both said that the writing process was not as easy as expected, and that the entire time writing them was a struggle and to expect that. Their honesty was appreciated and I found it to be very helpful.
I chose to attend the 3:50 Thursday session "Collateral Damage", which consisted of two papers, "HIV/AIDS: DC's Quiet Epidemic" and "Any Black is Every Black: The United States' War on Drugs and the Creation of a Neo-Slavery System" (that one's a mouthful).
ReplyDeleteThe first essay talked about how the HIV/AIDS crisis in DC is the most prevalent in the nation, greatly surpasses most of the world in contraction rates, and is similar to the HIV/AIDS crisis in some parts of Africa. The speaker focused on how the crisis plays a role in DC, which people are more at risk and prone to contraction, and how women, rather than men, have drawn the short straw when it comes to dealing with HIV/AIDS in DC. From this presentation, I learned of the intense research involved in writing a thorough, detailed paper. The writer's paper was based heavily in scientific data and facts, showing the depth to which her research took her. She also did a good job of explaining how in her research process, discovering one thing about her topic led her to research, and thus discover more, about another, related sub-topic. As her essay focused on women and education as a result of high rates of HIV/AIDS in DC, the information provided in the paper also conveyed this.
The second presentation I saw discussed how the US prison (and by extension, court) system is biased, in that the arrest rates for minorities when it comes to drug charges are significantly higher than non-minorities. Furthermore, the work these prisoners have to resembles that of slaves, as they're paid fractions of a dollar (much less than that of their non-incarcerated counterparts doing the same type of labor), and they're stripped of their right to vote and to receive federal funding for education programs once they leave jail. This presentation, moreso than the one before it, focused more on the process by which the author wrote the paper, and less on the content of the paper itself. The tips/process presented was quite general (start early, do research, ask a librarian) and, surprisingly, was less helpful for me than the information presented by the first writer, who explained her process concurrently with an explanation of her papar.
I chose to attend the 1:00 P.M. session titled "Writing about Comics." I really wanted to attend the drug-related one, but it was cancelled so I was a little bit bummed out when I only had a couple of options left. I went into the "Writing about Comics" workshop with somewhat of a flawed mentality, but the seminar did not disappoint. The writers, William and Sarah, were both extremely informative and came prepared with copies of their papers and powerpoint presentations. William spoke about the importance of not "freaking out" when one suddenly finds out that his or her paper has taken a completely different direction that first intended. This is something I can relate to, as I often find myself drifting off my main topic into a sub-topic that interests me more. William pointed out that such a way of writing is okay, especially when it comes to long, fifteen-page paper assignments. He also noted the importance of passion, and finding something (or a subtopic of something) that really interests you. The other student, Sarah, gave a very informative powerpoint presentation to visually emphasize her points. She talked about the importance of having one general sentence to work and gather information from. She displayed her guiding sentence, and said that she was able to do a great amount of research from such little writing, which seems ironic. She also talked about the importance of passion, and finding something to write about that you feel comfortable with; in her case, she loved comics. She even read her introductory paragraph before the class, which was pure description: she described a particular scene from a newspaper comic book. Not only was her introduction a great piece of writing, it also helped guide the reader with regards to what she was going to be discussing throughout those fifteen pages. Overall, the writing seminar was a great learning experience, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone.
ReplyDeleteI attended the "Writing about Comics" conference. Although it was not my first choice, and due to class conflicts, I jumped at this conference to fulfill the requirement without really thinking about the topic itself. However, once there I found it very engaging. The presenters were well prepared, one even having a 16-slide PowerPoint presentation that she walked us through. I thought her presentation was very well done, and very helpful to me because it made me really think about how I was going to go about conducting my research. She strongly emphasized the necessary reasons for including contracting views in a paper, comparing and contrasting being a key part of an interesting essay. Although I had no real interest in the topic she choose the write about, I found the way she went about her research very interesting. I realized the vast amount of research I will need to conduct to be able to not only find an actual topic within my broader topic, and I will need the research to add the substance to my paper. I found this capstone conference very interesting although I wish I would have been able to attend more or rather one with a topic I am really passionate about, but regardless I really enjoyed the time I spent at the capstone conference.
ReplyDeleteI attended the “Habits and Practices: Challenging Public Notions of High Performance” conference. The conference was very interesting and I enjoyed both paper topics. The first girl’s presentation was very helpful as the topic alone introduced procrastination. She spoke about her own timeline of completion and how important to her research was. She also recommended that everyone use an outline to help draft their paper and to not worry about the length at first if it seems to short as by the end you will be left with too much information. The second paper topic was about sleep deprivation and the girl spoke about how she spent her time as well. She also emphasized the importance of research and molding a strong concise thesis.
ReplyDeleteFor my session, I attended “Women’s Unmentionables: Challenging Gender Roles.” The first speaker, Michelle Betz, had a paper titled “The Fight to Fight: The Battle Over Women in Combat.” Her presentation was really interesting because a lot of her main arguments were her personal opinion, as she hopes to join the military after college, and the majority of the counter-arguments came from her father. At the end, she focused on explaining her method of writing the paper and her main point was to choose a topic that you find interesting since you’ll be researching and writing about it for an extended period. The second presenter, Linnea Turco , wrote a paper titled “A Hunger for Power: Examining Cannibalism Through the Lens of Female Empowerment.” Her paper is what drew me to this specific session because it was so unique and interesting. She based her paper off of the movie Fried Green Tomatoes and wrote about it through the lens of female empowerment. I thought attending her presentation would be especially beneficial as she went through a process that is similar to our assignment.
ReplyDeleteI attended the "Climate change and the Media" session, which entailed two presentations. The first was about whether or not the Disney Channel promotes messages about climate change. Her conclusion was that there were slight mentions of water safety, but not even the phrase "climate change" was used. The other presentation involved climate change and political cartoons, which showed that liberals on average drew more climate change cartoons than conservatives. However, when negative climate change events or scandals occur, conservative cartoons far outnumber liberal ones. Both of these presentations involved a lot of research, which they stressed was the hardest part. Their advice was to contact librarians and also to narrow down the collection of research you've found. I thought the conference was helpful because it showed how the quality of research can actually making writing a lot easier.
ReplyDeleteI went to session 6: women's unmentionable: challenging gender role on Thursday at 1:00 - 1:50. The two presentations were pretty interesting. The first one was about women in combat: The Fight to the Frontline by Michelle Betz and it went over sexism in the military and how they won't let females go in combat. At the end of her presentation she went over some pionters for writing a UW paper which were:
ReplyDelete1. pick an interesting topic that you are interested in
2. research alot about your topic
3. find specific suptopics for your topic
4. utalize library resources, internet databases such as JSTOR and also do some interviews with people about your topic
5. don't use all the information that you come across about your topic
6. meet with your professor/ use the libraries writing center before turning in your paper.
The second presentation was called Hunger for Power: examining cannabalism through the lens of femal empowerment. This was interesting and it talked about the lens, the arguement made, the synopsis, and women cannibals. Overall the session was interesting and I got a few pionters as to how to write my UW papers.
posted by Helen Gaynor
ReplyDeleteI chose to attend a conference about film analysis, specifically because one of the papers be presented was an analysis of the film Raging Bull, a boxing movie. I'm currently writing about Million Dollar Baby, so I thought I could learn a lot from someone who had written a film analysis in the boxing genre. It was so helpful to listen to someone else speak about the process I am currently in. I found it very helpful to listen to him discuss an atypical boxing film, one that does not fit into the typical boxing mold, similar to my movie It gave me a whole new perspective. He reminded me to always write about something I care about to to have a variety of sources. He actually gave me the titles of a few of his resources which I know are going to add depth to my paper. He went through his whole process of analyzing the film and i was able to learn a few new techniques for film analysis. I was lucky to be able to listen to someone speak about an essay similar to my own and I feel like I really learned a lot about analyzing a movie and revising a paper.
I chose to attend the conference entitled "The Writing Process: Changing Your Project Mid-Stream". The reason I chose this conference is because I often find myself writing about a topic and then wishing I could change it because I realize it is not what I really wanted to write about. The students that spoke talked about how they chose a topic, and then realized that they could find no good research for topics that weren't very narrow. It was hard to give their paper a good backbone with no research to be found. They said that although they were able to quickly recover from the change in topic, that they would recommend starting to research early on, so you know if you are going to want to change your topic. They said that if they had more time, they would have been able to have more research, such as interviews, which would have added to their papers. The students definitely inspired me to start doing research early since I know I often have a problem sticking to topics. This way I will be able to decide early on what my topic is exactly going to be.
ReplyDeleteI chose to go to the conference about "Perspectives on Scientific Writing: Environmental Justice and Bioethics" from 11:10-12:00 on the 13th. I was really glad that I chose this section, not necessarily because of the subject matter, but because of how the two speakers talked about their writing processes. It was really interesting to here how they went about researching and drafting their papers. One of the speakers mentioned how the more she researched, the more connections she was able to make between the different areas of her paper giving it more fluency and intellectual value. They said to write about something you are passionate about (that fits into your UW course subject) and go with it. Since the conference I've already been brainstorming ideas on what to write about, so we'll see where it goes.
ReplyDeleteI attended Rap and Revolution: Framing Politics Through a Hip Hop Lens because I found it hard to believe that someone could find correlations between rap and politics. However, after listening to the students' demonstrations, I quickly learned that a correlation could be made from nearly any two topics. The students not only emphasized the importance of choosing topics that interested them, but also the importance of choosing their topics early. By picking something early in the process, they were able to identify if there was going to be enough information on the subject. They also were able to research and additional information to supplement the thesis of their papers. Another important aspect that I would not have necessary thought of was the significance of asking professors and peers for advice. Both students sought the help of their professors and were subsequently rewarded. Also, through peer advising, the students were able to see other perspectives. However, the most important part of writing their papers was organization. Organizing both their papers and their time contributed to their papers' success.
ReplyDeletePhilip Tateyama
ReplyDeleteThe Capstone session I choose to attend was the campaigning for climate change. I choose that one becasue the environment and the fight to make changes in order to save the planet has always been important to me. The session was acturally pretty interesting as the two speakers were able to convey the need for climate change through very different ways as one did it through political cartoonists and the other one through tv/media. It was helpful as they discussed how they went about compiling the research for this rather long paper and the process of how they wrote it. They were very good papers and even though they were long they were interesting all throughout. Overall it was definetly helpful and worth the while to attend the session and it should aid the process of writing my final paper.
I went to the food discussion one and it provided excellent insight into how to begin, research, and keep on revising the draft. The student discussed the implications of last meal and had a very interesting presentation. I never realized how much of a research process this final paper was until I went to the presentation. This was very helpful and provided great detail on how to use the library's resources.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the session that I attended and at first when I was sitting in there I was very nervous, however, as the session went on my nerves were eased. The main thing that I took out of my session was that its never too late to change/alter your research topic and what direction you want your paper to go in. I also realized that by using various different resources for your paper it will not only make your paper longer, but it allows you to really tie your paper together. I also realized that the more creative you are and the more you think outside the box, the better your paper will turn out. Lastly I realized that when I write my final paper it needs to be about something I find interesting and really enjoy, it will make writing the paper so much easier
ReplyDeleteThe conference I attended dealt with comparative politics. The two papers were interested, put I found that the tips that they gave in regards to selecting a topic was the most important aspect. One idea that was given was to set up a meeting with a librarian in order to find a variety of media to supplement an idea for a thesis. In addition, both authors advised the group to choose a topic that was of interest, to ensure that the paper is as through as possible, and that it is an enjoyable process. Overall, I would say that the Capstone Conference idea is beneficial, especially because I chose a concentration which engaged me.
ReplyDeleteI went to the food roles conference with Kristen Sadavini and Anh Thu Tran. At first I was going to go to the Harry Potter one, but the time changed SOOO,, I went to this one. I actually thought it was very interesting, Kristen talked about how food in the 40s was presented in a very gender oriented slant. Her argument was that despite previous claims, cookbooks allowed for pro-feminist scopes that had been ignored due to gender roles. Her tips included making an appointment with a librarian, look at the footnotes of all assigned readings, and when selecting a topic to write about, find something that you have an issue with, so that researching and will serve both the paper's requirement and help you understand the topic better.
ReplyDeleteAnh spoke about Last Meals, which I was blown away with. The facination that the media and public has for last meals is quite astounding. Her argument was groundbreaking though, as no one before her had attemted to make the connection between the two. This made her research phase much harder, however it gave her lots of room to analyze and connect the two topics on her own.
The conference allowed me to understand how large the scope is for our last paper, and now I am really excited about it!