My feelings on rational argument

(Picture from Pinterest. I'm a busy bee.)

    Having a source (TedTalk by Sherry Turkle) already, summarizing and analyzing it was a great start. For the introduction I had an idea or a structure of how to write it. Same with my conclusion. Body paragraphs I had no clue. All I knew was to go in detail about each subtopic rather than being general about mental, physical, psychological, and so on. 

To be honest, I had time to work on it but outside factors made me not have a chance to fully invest my time working on the essay. The last day of Thanksgiving break, I finally had the time to just focus on school– especially my essay. So I had to have an idea for what each body paragraph will be talking about and how it ties back to the thesis. I used NCC’s database and google scholar to find my articles. Finding the articles was difficult as my topic was specific and needed facts and data. 

    As of now (11/30/23), I got the rough draft done and just need to revise a few things. Those few stuff are making sure the quotes are in MLA format (the titles of articles are in quotation marks, and some words should be upper cased), don’t say ‘states’ ‘says’ after what the author’s last name– instead say more of what the author’s feeling and for transitions use words that could make the paragraph flow together Block quote is something new I learned yesterday when I visited my professor during her office hours (will definitely use Purdue Owl to make sure my writing is what my professors and future writing would like). Block quote is when there are four or more lines of quotes it should have indents, no quotation marks and a period right after the quote ends. This makes the quote more appealing, easier to read, and easier to identify when the quote begins and ends. I'll give this my all before school ends! 

What I learned about Scholarly Research

 

 (Picture from Pinterest)

    Another day to visit NCC’s library computer lab room to learn more in depth about research! (Specific research questions to build my specific topics of my essay). I learned a lot today. We learned how to be in depth and more specific about our research question. The introduction started off with a warm up– using Amazon as an example! When we search for something, we all search up specific stuff we want– even add in filters to narrow our search– and we don’t always choose the first option to buy. It’s the same when we research our articles for our rational argument essays. 

    Next, we did a mini activity about creating a question from three different topics (one about place, problem, and something else). My two side desk partners and I all worked together to form one. The topics were interesting and difficult, but we managed to form a question from it. Laruen (one of the librarians who agreed to teach CARD-101 how to do research on NCC’s database library@noctrl.edu)-- would come by every group to check and discuss more about it. When she arrived at our group, we realized that our question was more on the border than specific. So, she helped us make it more specific. It was an interesting activity though. 

    After that activity, it was time to do our own. Everyone was given a worksheet that seemed like an organizer. We were assigned a box in the organizer to write down our own  research question. Then a smaller box with main subtopics and four more additional smaller boxes below– to write down even more specific topics under the subtopics. There are steps on how to start your research on the worksheet. On the back of the worksheet, it shows visual examples as to how to do narrow searching on the database. 

Library

 What I learned about the library (new stuff)

(picture from Pinterest) 

    I learned to remember the url: “library.noctrl.edu”. It’s the homebase of research, where students can find articles they need for either their psychology class, science, english, and other classes. I honestly didn’t learn anything new, everything in that computer lab room in the library was all familiar to me. 

The first time I used NCC’s library was for my general psychology (or Psychology: Sci of Behavior 100) class for my group’s project. My professor linked a slidedeck of detailed instructions on canvas so anyone can find our sources at the library.noctrl.edu. It led me to another place to find specifically psychology and my group’s topic. However, I still explored the library.noctrl.edu a bit. Then when I came into today’s library computer room to find out that I’ll be learning about how to use NCC’s library database– it turns out that I have already used it. I may not have known other filters there– but I was able to find it pretty quickly and add filters to my searched topic (on a google doc). 

In the computer lab lesson on credibility, they handed out a worksheet. The worksheet was a good review on learning how to look at an article and find out whether it’s credible or not. It must achieve the following in order for the article/book/etc to be creditable: who, what, where, why, and how. On the y-axis there’s more academic at the top and less academic on the bottom. On the x-axis left is the library and right is the internet. Then there’s what type of resource it is in the middle. Basically it’s a visual of resource types of how credible or not an article is. On the other side of the worksheet– there’s cardinal search practice– and I was off on my own looking for articles for my rational argument essay. I also already learned how to find credible sources in middle/high school. I think my high school also used the same method (the 5 criteria: who, what, where, why and how) to know if an article is credible or not. 

Week on my idea and process

                                                              (Picture from Pinterest)

 

Idea: 

I had no clue what I’ll write about for my rational argument essay. I was thinking of a problem at home– but it’s like having a partner who doesn’t do anything and I have to carry for us, not having enough time for self, wishing I had more time, my poor stats exam… etc. It’s just simple and random stuff in my life. Wasn’t sure if anything I listed or could have listed work as my rational argument essay. Luckily, now I know– or have an idea: screen time. I could reuse the same topic as my microtheme, because thinking of a new one is difficult.  

Process: 

I honestly had no idea what to write about for this new essay we need to write– rational argument. But then I remembered I wrote about screen time for my microtheme, and thought why not reuse it for this essay? I spent about a day and half thinking about what topics to write about– turns out I didn’t need to do it like that. I could reuse my microtheme topic! 

But that’s why I stayed after school (on 11.2.23) a bit, with my professor, to ask about my topic. Of course it’s a good topic– but the body paragraph ideas would be too much. Originally I had body paragraph one as health (physically and mentally), then body paragraph two about school and productivity, and body paragraph three will be about social media, and counterarguments: helps learning and productivity, social connections, watch and relax, jobs(?). It's basically a lot of subtopics, and my paper will probably exceed 7 pages. So now I’m just gonna focus on the psychological and mental effects of screen time. I could also talk about how it’s distracting or productive– depending on how people balance it out. We shall see what next week will be like. I'll be working on my summary and analysis worksheet-- just watching a TedTalk and jotting down important notes, and later in the box-- put it altogether!