Annotated Bibliography

Robots In Our Lives

4 June 2010

DSP Essay

This essay was assigned prior to my English 125 course. It was meant to act as a starting point for my college writing. It was evaluated by English 125 instructor at the beginning of the term, and I used those comments to improve my writing over the course of that semester. In this essay, I had to react to an article I read about robots replacing humans in the workforce. I made the argument that Robots should only replace humans when humans cannot be present. I gave three examples of how robots can be helpful, but humans will always be able to outperform them, especially when it relates to human interaction. The paper was well organized with a clear argument for my thesis. It functions as a persuasive essay, using several examples to demonstrate my argument. This essay is very basic, and hyper-organized. The language is basic, and the argument is surface level. The essay lacks creativity and insight into the topic, and takes a very generic thesis without much original thought. I plan to use this essay as a starting point for analysis of my improvement from hyper-organized to more creative, advanced writing.

Rape: The Crime That Goes Unpunished

21 September 2010

Persuasive Essay: English 125

This is the first persuasive essay I wrote for English 125. I was asked to pick any topic of my choosing and make a strong argument for change. I chose to discuss rape and the low rate of incarceration for those accused of the crime. I implemented statistics and case studies to show how difficult it is to prosecute with rape crimes, because it’s based off “my word against yours”. I hoped to inform and persuade people to advocate for change. I believe this essay was very weak, because it was very one-dimensional in the analysis of the situation. It failed to evaluate the reasons why this may be, and did not complicate the issues through thorough analysis. This essay can be used to show how my early essays were very basic, over organized, and simple in thought.

Proactive: The “Flawless” Advertisement

11 November 2010

Advertising Essay: Communications 101

This essay was the first major paper I wrote for a class in my major. The goal of the essay was to pick a product and analyze the advertising strategy used. Following that, I was asked to argue whether or not this was an affective and persuasive strategy. I used several examples and advertising terms to show the various tactics the advertising agencies used to sell their product, Proactive. My goal was to show these strategies in a clear manner and show that they were very successful, and that is a large factor in why they are so successful. I believe this paper was weak because of the strict organization. It took away from the persuasive aspect of the essay because I was too concerned with keeping it organized and to-the-point with describing the advertising strategies. I used this essay as another example of my freshman year writing level and as an example of the first essay I wrote in a class for my major.

She’s Beauty, She’s Grace, She’s Miss United States

12 December 2010

Persuasive Research Essay: English 125

This essay was my final paper for English 125. The paper aimed to show how the movie “Miss Congeniality” sexualizes women and poses an anti-feminist theme, despite the popularity of the movie. Using various research studies, the paper outlines the ways in which the movie gives women their value in their appearances over their intellect and other talents. Through concrete examples, these themes are presented and argued. This paper is a great example of my writing beginning to develop. This essay is slightly more persuasive because it’s a little less clear-cut in the organization, and it uses more advanced language and complete ideas. However, it is still far from my current writing, and there are flaws in the introduction, the “chunking” of paragraphs by research article, and the one-sided argument presented. I hope to point out the positive improvements as well as the ways in which it is still a very basic essay.

From Girl To Woman: Before Her Fifth Birthday

12 December 2011

Research Essay: English 225

This essay was one that I wrote for English 225 as a persuasive research essay about child pageants. The goal of this paper was to inform readers about child pageant life, the arguments behind both sides, and the research evidence regarding the outcomes of this lifestyle. This paper does a great job of integrating research articles into the central ideas presented in an organized, but not hyper-organized manner. In addition, the flow of the paper is much stronger, and a counter example is presented to give a more complete insight into the topic being discussed This paper is still relatively weak compared to my later work, though, because it is still very organized, presenting the counter-argument at the end, and has the typical intro and conclusion. In contrast, it doesn’t outright outline step by step the ideas that I would cover, which is a step up. I chose this essay because it’s much more advanced than my research essay on “Miss Congeniality” for English 125. With similar themes, it’s very easy to compare the two. Also, almost a year has passed, so there’s a significant jump in the quality of writing that is quite obvious.

Why I Write

11 November 2012

Essay: Writing 220

This was an essay presented to me in my first week of writing 220, the first required course for my writing minor. This paper had a very loose prompt—just explain why you write. Although it seemed simple at first, this was the first time I had received a loose prompt, and it turned out to be difficult to fully answer the question. After many revisions, I was able to tackle the question from many dimensions, which is one of the major themes I’m looking at in my writing, and I think this is where the switch happened. After meeting with my instructor, he really pushed me to look at all sides of writing—not just the positive things that come from writing, but also the ways it can make things harder. This essay has a loose organization as well, which presents itself as more advanced. This paper could still be stronger in the level of analysis presented, and I would have liked it to be a bit longer and more complete, but it’s still a vast improvement from my sophomore year writing. I chose this essay because I think it’s the tipping point to where my writing becomes a bit more abstract, creative, and multi-dimensional.

Facebook and Self-Esteem

11 December 2012

Research Proposal: Communications 381

This was a proposal for a research paper in my upper level writing course for one of my majors. This was the final paper we completed, and was the result of half a semester’s work. We were asked to pick any media related topic and propose a study that would help to understand the effects of that media on it’s users. I chose Facebook usage and self esteem, and I completed an extensive literature review, methods, results, and discussion section. Because it was a proposal, results were expected, not actual results. This essay did a fantastic job of being clear, complete, and organized. It would not be appropriate to analyze this organization based on creativity, because of the nature of the paper; however, it’s organized and creative enough within each category to be more advanced than previous papers completed. It’s also a great example of my first true research proposal.This paper could be improved by using more advanced language and being more dimensional by looking at more aspects of Face book usage; however, that was not required by the assignment. I used this essay because it’s one of the most advanced essays I have written, and it will be great to compare to my grant proposal, which I wrote at the end of my Junior year. I also added it because I believe it to be my strongest form of writing, which is why my final project is going to be very research based.

Birth Order and Procrastination in Young Adults

10 April 2013

Grant Proposal: Psychology 351

This essay was the culmination of a semesters work for a upper-level writing course in my second major. We were asked to analyze a developmental topic through a research proposal, come up with a unique topic and study design, and complete a data analysis plan. This essay was my most advanced research essay, and it was in my writing style of greatest strength. I was creative through my ideas and study design, while simultaneously being organized and logical in my presentation. This essay was a great balance between those two very difficult tasks. Although it’s strong, this essay is not perfect. I could have gone above and beyond by discussing the possible implications of the results, which would have made this paper more complete. I added this essay because it’s an example of what my writing looks like when I’m allotted an extended period of time to develop ideas and use creativity to look into an idea that I find interesting in my major. This paper is very similar to how I see my final project being presented, but with a different psychology based topic.

Finals Stress

14 December 2012

Blog Post: Writing 220

This post was written to complete a requirement for Writing 220. We were asked to periodically post on word press, and we were given the freedom to write about any topic of our choosing. Because of the informal, fun nature of this assignment, my post was about Finals Stress. It’s an upbeat, short, informal post that links to an article discussing how you can better handle finals stress. I highlight several tips presented in the article, and briefly talk about my own experiences. It’s quick, to the point, and has a very loose organization. Although this post was meant to be very informal and short, it seems that that may have affected my creativity and level of analysis and thought that I put into it. It certainly could be more advanced and complete. I added this post because I wanted an example to contrast my grant proposal. This work is more representative of the writing I do on a daily basis. I don’t normally analyze everything I write about, nor do I put much thought into the organization or writing style. I believe this will make my portfolio more complete and will provide better insight into my day-to-day writing.

11 November 2013

Personal Statement: Law School Application

This was the essay I completed for my law school applications to the ten schools I applied to. It was a very open prompt—essentially describe why you want to attend law school, and highlight any experiences you’ve had that led you to this decision. I chose to write a personal narrative, which is quite unique for a law school personal statement. I hoped that this would help me stand apart from other candidates, and show my talent for writing as well. I decided to use a very unique organization with this story by starting at the middle of the story and then going back in time halfway through the essay. I also used sophisticated language and looked at the situation being described from numerous perspectives, which I believe gives the essay a mature feel. The drawback of this essay is that there was a three page limit, which severely limited the amount of analysis and background story I was able to provide. In a way; however, I believe this essay shows a talent for being able to scale down a very complicated issue and story to the bare essentials while also being compelling, interesting, and “complete”. I added this essay because I believe this is one of the greatest pieces I have written, and it shows my development from very simple understanding of controversial topics to a much more advanced analysis and organization.