Author: btoothaker (Page 1 of 3)
My partner was Jenna, and we decided to use the peer review guidelines from the Social Media project because they aligned pretty well with what we wanted feedback on. We then left additional comments along with those with any extra ideas or thoughts we had upon reading the other person’s paper. I thought the review was helpful because I was able to receive a lot of comments about ways to fix my paper, such as changing evidence and clarifying my thesis statement. One area where I wish I had received a little more feedback is if my claims and ideas were concise enough. Reading through my paper, I realized my ideas are a bit scattered, but I was able to get help with this in my conference.
I thought that the peer-reviewing specific to MLA formatting was helpful because a second set of eyes to look over it made me more confident that I had done it correctly. I felt we were both able to give and receive feedback, and I made little changes based on this feedback. I had the same partner as the first peer-review which I think helped because she had already read through my essay once. I also looked over my paper and focused on wording issues. When I did this, I found unnecessary words I could take out as well as words that I needed to change.
Working Thesis: Growing technology and data collection are invading people’s privacy when they may not know it. However, some technology is being used for the bettering of people’s lives.
The first source, “The Big Business of China’s Surveillance Tech”, got me thinking a lot about how different life would be if we had the same type of surveillance technology in our country. I feel like it would make everyone more on edge and paranoid in general. However, it might also make people more careful about what they do and take more responsibility for their actions. I think this type of technology is almost an invasion of people’s privacy and infringes on people’s rights. It makes me think about how some people may put tape over the camera on a laptop so no one can hack into the camera and spy on them. The second source, which explained the importance of some technology, showed the other side. They acknowledged at the beginning how many people discuss the negative aspects of technology. However, they took a different approach by explaining particular pieces of technology that provide positive results. One of these includes a dog collar that is able to detect different reactions of a dog in order to analyze whether it would be a good service dog or not. Jennifer Goldbeck’s TED Talk made me think most about our “diary entry” posts. She explained how she can tell a lot about a person based on what they like on social media and who/what they follow. This made me think back to my diary post to where I discuss the social media platforms I use on my phone. I began to think about not only the role these have in my life but how they may be able to explain aspects of my life. I am very curious as to what someone could be able to tell about me based on what I like and who I follow.
I felt one of the outcomes I improved on during this project was integrating ideas. I felt I was able to relate information and ideas from different authors within each of my paragraphs while making sure all of it related back to my thesis. For example, in one of my paragraphs, I discuss how social media causes teens to feel like they need to change or hide their identity. I used ideas from Boyd and Greenfield to explain this concept, and I feel I was able to successfully connect them. I added a transition to connect the similar ideas and then connected it back to my original idea of the paragraph. Overall, I think I was able to add information from other sources that worked well with the points I was trying to make within each paragraph. I was also able to use multiple sources to add to my naysayer paragraph.
We haven’t been together for a long time, it’s been about 3 months now. Her old phone stopped working. I get the feeling she misses it, I work differently than she was used to. We have already had some good memories together though. We’ve taken lots of pictures since she’s gotten to college. Mostly of her with her friends, but also a lot of her family from when she’s gone home. I think my favorite pictures we’ve taken are those from the day at the apple orchard. Her niece and nephews were there along with her parents and older sisters and brother. Everyone was really happy that day, it had been the first time they had all gotten together in a long time and I was glad I got to witness it. This was one of the best days we’ve had together, most days aren’t quite as sweet.
She often takes me to classes where I get put in her bag for hours at a time. I usually get taken out during her mealtimes though. I feel a bit guilty because I take away her time with her friends but I’m still glad to see her. In these few months, we have already gone through a lot together. I’ve been through many calls to her family. Most times she’s just checking in with them to see how they’ve been and to tell them about her day. However, sometimes she’s sad. Sometimes she tells them, and in turn tells me, how much she misses being home. A couple of times her tears have hit my screen, but most of the time she is happy. Sometimes I hope I don’t make her more unhappy. Sometimes she smiles and laughs when she opens up Snapchat and sees messages from her friends, but some things she sees on it make her less happy. I think she’s happiest on Facebook because this is where she has a group chat with her family.
When I went back to look at my draft, I decided to focus on taking out unneeded words. I often create unnecessarily long sentences, so taking out extra words helps to make my piece more concise. I also looked back at the places where I used “however” in order to make sure my punctuation was correct. If it was connecting two independent clauses I made sure that I added a semicolon before and a comma after. This is because it is a transitional expression and not a coordinating conjunction. Finally, I also worked on getting rid of run-on sentences by adding punctuation where it was needed or just separating two clauses and making them each their own sentence. This helped with the flow of my writing as well as taking away some of my long sentences.
The chunking method is helpful in some ways, however, it is also a very general way to annotate a text. This method is good for looking back at the general ideas and finding the main points in a text with the evidence that goes along with each claim/argument. However, it doesn’t add detail about the text. Because of this, in order for this method to be most effective, it’s good to add additional notes besides just the labels such as the main argument, claim, and evidence.
[TOPIC] Some believe that smartphones and social media are becoming increasingly more damaging to newer generations. [RESTRICTION] Some of the issues that are focused on include how teen’s mental health and socialization skills are being negatively affected by this technology. [EXHIBIT] This is shown in Jean M. Twenge’s article “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” She claims, “The portrait of iGen teens emerging from the data is one of a lonely, dislocated generation” (10). With the “iGen” generation being this newer generation that has grown up with internet, social media, and smartphones, she explains that these are causing the children and teens or this generation to become more isolated. Twenge also explains how a higher use of these devices can also be linked to higher depression rates and less sleep. [ANALYSIS] Twenge’s viewpoint is right in some aspects by the ways in which this technology can create a more isolated generation. Teens are spending more time on technology than with their friends and family and comparing their lives to others. She also explains how technology negatively affects teens’ mental health. They often see everyone else’s happiest moments on social media and it makes them feel less confident themselves and they may become jealous. However, she also pushes the point that technology is making teens feel less of a desire to be independent. An example she uses is that teens aren’t wanting to get their driver’s licenses as often as in the past. In reality, though, gettings a driver’s license is still a big deal in most teenagers’ lives and it’s very exciting. This then makes it something that teens often post on their social media. [CONCLUSION] Although technology may be affecting teens negatively in some ways such as in their social lives and with some aspects of their health, it doesn’t necessarily make them less independent.
