Author Archives: rc117780

Hi everyone.

Like Dana, I was so busy writing my paper that I forgot to blog sooner! But I’m writing this post with a smile on my face because I finished my paper! After working on it extensively all of last week and through all of this weekend, (and the whole semester for that matter) I finally completed it. Thankfully I have a cousin who is a editor for the Daily News. I sent my paper off to him tonight,  and I will be making any necessary revisions with his feedback tomorrow morning before handing it in. Congratulations to all those who completed the paper, and good luck to those who are still working on it! See everyone tomorrow!

-Rene

Hi everyone.

So the time has finally come to start writing my paper.  I started writing today. Hopefully I progress along nicely and not get stuck anywhere. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, the annotated bibliography assignment really helped me out a lot. After doing the presentation on Tuesday about my research progress, I feel even more confident. I know where there are certain ‘holes’ to be plugged, in terms of my argument and evidence. The questions and comments I received at the end of the presentation were extremely helpful as well. It allowed me to see what information I’m missing and it helped me get a sense of how to explain my argument as effectively as I can. As I explained in my presentation, one of the big challenges that I am facing is figuring out how to explain my evidence and how it supports my argument in the most simplest terms. I want the reader to clearly understand my argument and evidence, in the least confusing way possible. Hopefully I can achieve this goal and write a solid paper.

I hope everybody is having success writing their papers. Good luck to all.

-Rene

Hi everyone.

After completing the annotated bibliography assignment, I feel like I have a better grasp of my reasons and the evidence that supports those reasons. I am currently preparing some notes and looking through all of my research again in preparation for Tuesday’s presentation. I feel pretty confident so far but I still feel like I have a lot of work to complete. I wanted to begin writing my paper this weekend (so I can get a sense of where I really am, and also see if there is anything missing in my research), but it doesn’t seem possible at the moment because of a ton of other school work I have to do. But I plan to start writing my paper Tuesday night, and write 2-3 pages per day for the rest of the week (hopefully). As I mentioned before, the annotated bibliography assignment really helped a lot and I am hoping that the presentation helps me a lot as well (the reason I say this is because you need to have a really good understanding of your topic, and know the reasons and supporting evidence in order to fulfill the criteria we decided on for the presentation. In turn, that will be very beneficial when writing the paper). And as I’ve been putting in my other blog posts, this paper is intimidating but I’m pretty sure things are going to work out just fine.

Good luck on your presentations and writing your papers in the next couple of weeks.

-Rene

Hi everyone.

With the annotated bibliography assignment coming up, I’m doing a lot of reading (I’m sure all of you are as well). I’m finding a lot of good information regarding my topic in the scholarly articles I have acquired. But one fear I have is figuring out which information is the most relevant and useful for my topic, and which information is not. Most of the sources that I am reading have tons of good information but I want really want to pick out the information that will strongly support my argument. In order to achieve this, I list the important information that I find as I read the article. And when I finish reading the article, I go over the list and only keep the information that I believe will strongly support my argument. It’s actually a very good way to keep track of all the information I will be using in my paper because as I have mentioned before, it is easy to get information overload when reading so much. Also another fear I have is not knowing if I have enough information to write 20 pages. I don’t know if anyone else is feeling the same way, but it is something that has scared me since the beginning. Hopefully after completing the annotated bibliography assignment, I will know if I have enough information or not.

Hi everyone.

I decided to slightly modify my topic. Instead of comparing immigration policies in AZ and CA, I will be measuring the effects that the immigration policies have on citizens of these states. (My argument: Immigration policies in CA and AZ that were created to restrict undocumented immigrants also negatively affect citizens in that state.) I have found a good amount of evidence to support my argument but I’m having some trouble inputting this information into my argument outline assignment.

For example: I found a scholarly article that shows the link between CA’s immigration policies targeted towards undocumented immigrants and autism diagnosis rates among Hispanic children (and by Hispanic children I mean American-born Hispanic children). I found a scholarly article that illustrates how the immigration policies negatively affect the life experiences of 2 undocumented immigrants and of a long-time citizen and successful entrepreneur, who is of Mexican decent (of course for my paper, I’m interested more importantly in the life of the entrepreneur and how immigration policies negatively affect him). Also, I found another scholarly article that illustrates how Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 not only affects the lives of undocumented immigrants, but the lives of the undocumented community as a whole (both citizen and non-citizen). The issue of racial profiling is most prevalent in this article.

I don’t know if this makes any sense, but I feel like I am finding the “evidence” section of the argument outline and not the “reason” part of the outline.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.