alisavorotnikova

Here is the list of search terms I came up with for my research process:

-American Universities International Admission

-International admissions rate

-The acceptance rate at universities

-English proficiency exam

-Transfer students

-American Universities admission requirements

-Financial requirements for international students

-English proficiency test

And I found a source for my essay that I think could be very helpful. It is a website called TheSpikeLab, I think it is relevant because they conduct a lot of information and data before providing their articles to the audience. Also, the provided information is based exclusively on statistical analysis and facts.

Scrolling through all of the Invention Strategies I found a couple of them very interesting to try out in my writing. One of my all-time favorites is  Freewrite for 5 minutes. First of all, using this strategy you do not have to worry about grammar or spelling, thus you are fully focused on your ideas. Your writing flows freely and you don’t have to stop every time when you made mistake. Also, I really liked the fact that you only get 5 minutes to brainstorm and write. Then, you know that you have a time frame and you start working productively.

My second favorite strategy was Mapping. Honestly, I use this technique every time I have to write something. It allows you to start with broader and abstract ideas and then fill them with more detailed information. Also, This way your writing will be more structured and well organized later on.

I’m starting my Research Essay with a tentative question: “Why is it so much more complicated and harder for international students to get into American universities?”

This week I chose the chapter “Grading Has Always Made Writing Better” to read. The name of the chapter caught my attention because I find this topic very ambiguous.

This chapter mainly talks about the necessity of a grading system in education, the key point is that without grading there is no space for growing and improving your work. However, I decided to focus on a different issue of grading. For me, the problem at the heart of the chapter is that grading is not always very reliable. Your grade will most likely depend on who is grading your work, what is your relationship with this person, not to mention what kind of work this is, or what topic you chose to talk about.

After some research on Google, I found that the group that is most interested in this issue is parents. They find the grading system in schools to be very unfair, and let’s say…unpredictable. Their children come home being very disappointed and upset just because there is no explanation behind the grade they receive. They are worried that it seems almost impossible to figure out what are some of the criteria of a certain grade.

I, myself, had faced this issue many times in my life. Sometimes, I attributed the bad grade to the teacher’s incompetence instead of thinking about improving my own work…

I wonder if there is a system of grading which would provide an independent grade, meaning that it would not be aware of the relationship between student and the teacher; or a topic that was chosen, or an opinion expressed.

-Society and History: Scholars in writing studies (just as in any academic field) argue to and against one another in scholarly journals, books, and conference talks, those forms of knowledge-making don’t consistently find their way into the public’s understanding of writing.

-Audience: Readers of Bad Ideas About Writing.

-Speaker: Scholars, intellectuals, and artists; writing scholar-teachers; authors in the Bad Ideas collection (Edge.org).

-Message: Public deserves clearly articulated and well-researched arguments about what is not working, what must die, and what is blocking progress in current understandings of writing.

-Purpose: To spark arguments about provocative ideas to be published online and collected into print volumes intended for a general public audience; major myths about writing instruction—written by experts for the educated public—that could collectively spark debate and have us rethink our pieties and myths; to translate specialized knowledge and experiences about writing.

-Context: The beginning of 1998; West Virginia University Library; after 2015 Conference on College Composition and Communication.

When it comes to my daily life communication I often use rhetoric to emphasise an idea or statement.

For example, I noticed, when you start your talk with a rhetorical question your audience pays more attention to whatever you say. In my opinion, that happens because people need some time to analyse your question since it has been veiled!

On the other hand, it might not be such a good idea to use rhetorical statements when you are trying to convey an important information. It might be misunderstood by your audience.

Also, it is essential for me to be aware of my audience and the communication channels I am using. Writing an email to my professor and writing an essay are two different things. In the first case, I want to be straight forward and clear, whereas in the second case there is some space for imagination and rhetoric.

Thinking about rhetoric brings to my mind one time when I went abroad with my friend from Oxford.  Majoring in linguistics and philology, his English sounded almost like an alien language. He could not speak normally, using simple words and sentences. Every phrase he would say caused brain anemia for me, and the people around him. (Honestly, I think he was just trying to show off. There is no need to talk using every word from an Oxford dictionary!) However, this was his style…

One day we decided to go and visit The Botanical Garden in a neighboring town. We went to a train station, and while I was so busy trying to find a restroom I asked him to talk with the controller and find out at what stop do we get off.

After two hours on a train, and not even being close to our stop, I got worried and decided to ask the controller myself. It turns out that my friend was so rhetoric and difficult in his phrasing that the controller(a poor woman…), didn’t even understand his question! Of course, we missed our stop and were moving in the opposite direction from the Botanical Garden…

This situation taught me that it is very important to know when is the right time to be rhetorical. Sometimes, people get very confused or mislead by rhetorical things.

When I was younger stories that were told me by my mother put me to bed. She used it as a little treat for me. My mom was telling me about anything. How she and my father met, how she begged my grandmother to get a dog, how warm was the seawater when she went to a summer camp on the coast. Her stories were always something very personal to me. They were almost like little secrets between only me and her. I loved those moments!

But time flies, these moments go away, however, stories do not. They always help people to get closer to each other. When someone tells you a little something about his life you start to relate to this person way more.

And that is where I think it might be very useful in any field of study. It makes finding a client or convincing him to buy something from you way easier if he can relate to you. You can tell him anything just to keep the conversation going, or to make him feel comfortable like he is talking with his mom before going to bed. It is impossible without storytelling. That is why stories are very important and useful in any industry.

Hello everyone! My name is Alisa Vorotnikova, but you can call me Alice. My pronouns are she/her. I’m originally from Russia however I’ve been living in the United States for the past five years. This is my first semester at Baruch and I am a transfer student from FIT.

My main goal for this semester is to become freer at writing long paragraphs and essays since it is an important part of being a college student. I guess my question would be how do unit schedules cross with weekly schedules? Is it the same thing but in a different setup? Or do we have to complete both?

I would say that the most important rule I found for myself as a writer is to organize whatever I am writing properly. I like to create a list with key points first, and then follow them in my essay. A good example of it would be to structure my work like introduction first, then three body paragraphs, and conclusion. Then my essay looks more organized, easy to read, and complete.

In my opinion, I don’t write too often, and the only writing I do is my school work. And yes, it can be very frustrating, especially if it is a very long formal style essay. Personal style essays don’t bother me that much, I even enjoy them sometimes:)