Questions:
1. What challenges did you face during the Quick Reference Guide and how did you deal with them?
Near the beginning of this assignment, I had a lot of trouble determining exactly what was being asked of me. I did not know or understand what a QRG was, and I did not know how to go about creating or formatting one. I solved this problem myself by reading over the Project #1 Rubric (too) many times and also by researching QRG examples on the internet.
After realizing and connecting the meaning of a QRG to an example, I realized that I was familiar with the concept of the genre, and that the only thing I lacked was personal experience.
2. What successes did you experience and how did they happen?
I had a successful time with the researching aspect of this project; all of the sources were easily accessible and purposeful in including them in my writing. I found a wide variety of speakers in a lot of different media sources. Social media, comedy shows, news articles, journals, blogs, radio segments--you name it, I probably found it. This could have mainly been because I chose a popular and current topic, but it also could be because I learned how to research in a wide range of formats.
I also felt really confidant about the conventions in this genre; once I had an understanding of the protocol in this genre, it was easy to format and finish my writing in this way.
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| Jason Howie. "Social Media Apps." 03/23/2013 via Flickr. Attribution 2.0 Generic License. |
I found a lot of social media and popular culture sources and arguments to be effective, not only for this genre, but specifically for my subject. I did include some scholarly sources and information as well, but overall, people seem to have a common understanding of this topic and want to share their opinion about it. The place where most of these opinions end up are blogs and other forms of social media.
I found that hyperlinking was really effective and useful--I could include as much information as I wanted to, by including a simple hyperlink! I found it helpful for myself, because I could condense specific information in the article. Also, adding pictures into the text created an inviting article, at least to look at, and I enjoyed including such visuals.
4. What kinds of arguments, rhetorical strategies, design choices and writing practices did you find the most ineffective for you project? Why?
As I said, most scholarly sources felt out of place in this assignment and in my topic. They were ineffective because most of them were statistics, and if that was all that was included, the audience would get bored really quickly. I mainly focused on the opinions and hard facts of the topic, while including some statistics that served as strong evidence.
5. How was the writing process for this project similar to other school writing experiences you've had in the past?
Like other past writing experiences, I had to research a topic throughly and provide sources about it. I have had to quote and explain various pieces of information, and give intensive information about a topic. I have also had to think about the certain conventions and rules that go along with the genre.
6. How was the writing process for this project different to other school writing experiences you've had in the past?
Unlike my other writing experiences in the past, this project called for a Quick Reference Guide, which was a completely new concept to me. I have never been told not to include in-text citations, until now. Also, I have never written about a topic from all the parties involved--I have normally just picked one of those groups and zeroed in on how they were involved in the matter that I was discussing.
This was definitely one of the most informal and causal pieces of writing I have ever written that was related to school-work, and that was completely fine with me.
7. Would any of the skills you practiced for this project be useful in your other coursework? Why or why not?
This project clearly relates to this class--the use of media sources, hyperlinks, white space, extensive research and other various conventions and qualities are some common themes that we have been discussing. In my other classes, some of these things would apply. For one, I now feel more confidant in my research skills. I have an understanding of the types of information that I could gather, and how I could find that info.
However, this would not relate to most of my other classes because of the format and genre that it is in. This is a very specific genre, with regulations that seem to only coincide with this particular style of writing. I will probably not be told to write a QRG ever again, but if I do have to, then I have extensive knowledge on how to go about doing that.
--Jenny Bello
REFLECTION:
After reading and replying to two other blog posts, I have developed some new ideas regarding Project 1. First of all, I am consoled by the fact that other people struggled with formatting in Google Docs, too. Both Addie and Lauren said that this was one of their biggest problems that they had to overcome while writing their QRG, and I could not agree more.
Reading other classmate's reflections on their project made me realize how impactful this experience could become for our general writing skill levels. I think that as a class we have gotten to be better researchers, because of this specific project. I know that, personally, I have gotten better at differentiating between summarizing and presenting information, too. Looking back on it, this project taught me a lot of useful skills that are going to be useful in future classes and papers.
Like you, I was a little confused on where to start with my QRG. Looking at the examples of the QRGs really helped me get an idea of possible ways to organize and format my QRG to best fit my topic. Like you mentioned in your blog post, scholarly sources were not very helpful to me either. Particularly because my topic is a recent and continuing controversy that is still being reported on. I imagine in some time, that there will be a useful scholarly source on my controversy, but as of now, there were none. I also feel as though I learned a lot from this project. Before this class, I had never written or even heard of a quick reference guide. It was really interesting learning about and actually completing a work in a new genre.
ReplyDeleteI agree completely with the questions about how this writing project is similar and differs from past writing experiences. What was different from my project was I could not find any useful social media sources. This is partly because the main events of my controversy are not a current topic. While writing a QRG was a new genre, I don't see myself having to use the skills of writing a QRG again. But like you said, a lot of the same writing and research skills can be applied to future assignments even in other subjects.
ReplyDeleteI had the exact same problem in that I did not know what a QRG was in the beginning but, I felt the same way as you in that I was able to be successful in the QRG genre. I did not state it in my reflection but I agree that the scholarly sources felt out of place for my topic as well. I found that hyperlinking was really effective as well and it is really nice to use in that you do not have to use in text citations.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that hyperlinking was very effective, and you didn't have to do a formal citation because you could just put the hyperlink right there. I also was fine with writing informally, and I found that it was a nice break from what we usually have to do in an English class.
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