Lesson 15

December 6, 2011

XXXXX Morgan

P.O. Box XXXXX

Fairbanks, AK 99708 

Dear Ms. Morgan:

I wanted to thank you for your suggestions and feedback these past few months. They have been very helpful as I have completed each assignment for my English course at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

As you are aware, I am attending the university in order to eventually obtain a degree in accounting. Currently, I am in my freshman year and have just completed my first semester.  Over the course of my English class I have had the opportunity to research and write many papers. With this letter I have enclosed a resume of some of my accomplishments. My plan is to continue to write for each class I take over the next several years, and to also use what I have learn to improve my correspondence at my job for the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District.

Once again I want to thank you for your help this semester. I am very grateful for all that you have done. I hope that as you read the following resume you enjoy looking at the accomplishment that I have achieved.

 

Sincerely,

Jennifer Morgan 

Writer

P.O. Box XXXXX

Fairbanks, AK 99708

Objective

To inform you of my writing experience

Education

Fall 2011                     University of Alaska Fairbanks

·         Enrolled in accounting program

·         Completed English course

May 1996                    Eaton High School

·         Graduated top ten percent of class

·         Completed four years of English or writing classes

Academic Writing Experience

Fall 2011                     Introduction to Academic Writing, ENGL F111X

·         “Teenagers and Cosmetic Plastic Surgery”:  Wrote a ten-page essay about the dangers of adolescent plastic surgery

·         “Social Classes in America”:  Wrote a five-page paper comparing two essays that discuss social stereotypes in the media

·         “A Comic Book Can Be a Powerful Tool”:  Wrote a five-page essay discussing Joel Andreas comic book essay format

·         “Protecting Sexually Active Teens”:  Wrote a five-page essay discussing the importance of teens having easy access to condoms

·         “Teenagers and Community Service”:  Wrote a five-page essay discussing the benefits of a high school graduation requirement of community service

·         “Mike Rose’s ‘I Just Wanna Be Average’”:  Wrote a three-page paper describing Mike Rose’s essay on his experience in vocational classes

·         “Education and Social Classes”:  Wrote a four-page paper comparing two essays that suggest schools educate to students in order to maintain their social class

·         “Gratitude, My Personal Strength”:  Wrote a two-page essay describing a personal strength of gratitude

Additional Writing Experience

August 2011-              

Present                              Fairbanks North Star Borough School District, Special Education Secretary                             

·         Prepare progress reports, letters of consent, and Individualized Educational Program reports

·         Record contact log of conversations with parents regarding scheduled appointments

·         Schedule meeting between teacher, staff, and parents

Lesson 14

What I wish I had done differently while working on my research paper.

 
         My research paper is about the affects that plastic surgery can have on a teenager, both emotionally and physically. I was able to find a lot of information that  supported my thesis , as well as those that gave the opposition’s argument. In fact, I had so many good sources of information, that at first I had trouble narrowing it down to those that would best serve my paper. After a lot of reading and pre-writing, I was finally able to chose those I felt had the best supporting evidence for my argument.

            I also think that I gave myself plenty of time to work on the research paper. After submitting the rough draft and consulting with an outside source, I still had almost two weeks to implement some of the changes that were suggested. By following my plan for completion, I was able to take each step at a steady pace and did not feel rushed at all.

            When consulting with the writing center, I was able to talk with a lovely person who gave me some great ideas on how to improve my paper. She walked me through each paragraph, suggesting some word changes or areas I might want to expand. I feel that I was able to take her input and make the necessary changes in order for my main idea to come across more clearly.

            Over all, I am happy with the way my research paper turned out. Over the last week, I have spent time going over my paper in order to see if there was anything I might want to change, and tweaked it where it was needed. If I have to choose something that I wish I had done differently, I think it is that I wish I had annotated the two books that I used as sources. I made all kinds of marks on the many articles that I printed off the internet, both with highlights and notes in the margin, and I feel that this helped me to understand the material better. When I was reading the two books, though, I just bookmarked a few key pages and made a couple notes on yellow post-its. If I had it to do over, I think I would take those books somewhere I could make copies, and print those pages or chapters that supported my paper. This way, I would have been able to mark up the pages with my thoughts and questions, and have gotten more out of the material.

Lesson 13

My Experience with the Writing Center

I had an appointment over the phone with the Writing Center on November 20, 2011. I emailed them my paper, and a woman named Jennifer called me at 2:17 at my home. We discussed my paper for almost a hour, and she helped me a lot with some of my sentence structures. She also gave me some areas in my paper where I could expand on the ideas.

My research paper is about how lives of teenagers can be negatively impacted by receiving plastic surgery at such a young age. Jennifer stated that my paper had a lot of direct points, that the paper flowed smoothly, and that she didn’t have any problems transitioning from one point to another. One question I had, was about citing my charts in the body of the paper, and although she wasn’t exactly sure how to do, she gave my some advice that was helpful. Jennifer also walked me through some of the sentence where she thought the wording was a little off. She suggested changing a word here and there, which helped some sentences explain my point a little better, and others have more of an impact. She also mentioned that she liked the idea that teenagers and adults of different expectations of the results of surgery, and she suggested that I should expand on this more. '=

We also discussed an idea that I had planned to put in my paper, but decided to leave it out at the last minute because I was having trouble finding any source to support it. The originally idea was that instead of parents and plastic surgeons evaluating the teens to determine if they were mature enough to make a decision regarding surgery, that the teenagers should be required to visit a psychologist and the doctor would then have to clear her before she could proceed with the surgery. Jennifer stated that she thought my paper might be leading up to something like this, but that I never actually got there.  She suggested that I add the idea back into the paper, and instead of worry about citing a source, to just use my own words.  She also suggested that I might want to address who would regulate the psychological clearance that teens would have to receive, and to also discuss some alternatives to plastic surgery for teens who are suffering from low self-esteem. 

In the paragraph where I plan to address the opposition’s view, she suggested that I might want to give some examples of when teenagers would benefit from plastic surgery in a positive way.  In my research paper, I had just mention those teens who suffering from serious discomfort or pain, and Jennifer suggested that I list some individual examples.

I think that the phone consultation that I had with Jennifer was very beneficial.  She point out several areas of my paper that I could improve, and she also listed some areas where I could expand my ideas a little bit.  I am grateful for her help, and thankful that she had so many suggests for me.

Lesson 12

A Writer’s Reference Exercise

     In the plagiarism exercise, I learned that if a phrase contains two sentences and the first sentence contains the authors name and the second contains the information from the source, the second needs to be properly documented.

Lesson 11

I summarized two articles for lesson number eleven. The first article, “Cosmetic Plastic Surgery for Young Adults,” is a guide for parents of teenagers interested in receiving a cosmetic surgical procedure. It was updated in October of 2011, so I found the information in it valuable and up to date. The information in the article was beneficial in seeing both sides of the argument. It leaned a little more towards allowing teens to receive surgery, but did offer scenarios in which it would be inappropriate. This article also lists several links where I can go to receive reliable information. The article was well written and valuable in allowing me to see the opposition’s view on the argument.

The second article, “Is Plastic Surgery a Teen Thing?” by Denise Mann, is very interesting. The statistics were a little outdated, but when I combined them with the information from the first article, it allowed me to see how the number of cosmetic surgical procedures has increased in the last decade. It also lists some common reasons why a teenager would wish to receive plastic surgery. The article also explained that the teens need to have realistic expectations and be mature enough to make an informed and responsible decision. This article was also well written, and brought up some good points.

When I annotated both of these articles, I found that I was able to put my thought into a more organized fashion. This allowed me to make notes of not only what I thought about different statements,  but questions I needed to look up later, and different areas I would like to explore more. One of the pre-writing strategies I used for the article was to play the believer/doubter game. I read the article through with the intention of believing what the author was trying to convey, and made notes in the margin. Then, I reread the article with the intention of doubting the things the author was writing, and I made marks in the margin this time as well. After I was done reading the article, I looked over my notes and was able to better grasp both sides of the argument. It was a very effective tool. On the second article I did the does/says analysis. For each paragraph in the article I would write a does statement in which I would identify the paragraph’s function. Then I would write a says statement summarizes the paragraph’s main point. While I didn’t find this as helpful as the believer/doubter game, it did allow me to analyze each paragraph, and to really think about what I was reading. Overall, I found the annotating of the articles to be the most helpful.

Works Cited

“Cosmetic Plastic Surgery for Young Adults.” Plastic Surgery Guide. Novellead, October 2011. Web. 5 Nov. 2011. <www.plasticsurgeryguide.com>.

Mann, Denise. “Is Plastic Surgery a Teen Thing?” Medicine Net. Medicine Net Inc., 4 Oct. 2004. Web. 5 Nov. 2011. <www.medicinenet.com>.