For my final project I observed a sorority here on campus. While studying the sorority, my goal was to find out what they really were like. Do they show the stereotype of a drinking, partying, unintelligent sorority? Or, is this sorority full of kind hearted girls who love each other and love to help out their community?
Before starting this project, I was extremely overwhelmed and did not really understand what I was supposed to do. But, in time I picked my topic, started observing and interviewing and finally got the hang of it. I really liked this project because it allowed me to see into a world that I was not a part of and I got to learn the stories of people I normally would not talk to.
Constructing my final paper was a little bit of a challenge for me only because I could not decide what information to cut out and what information I should keep. I ended up cutting out more information than I thought I would need to, but overall I am happy with the outcome.
When creating my website for my final portfolio, I had minimal problems and decided to devote 8 hours straight of my time to finishing it. I felt the motivation, so I took advantage of it while it lasted. I only had to move around a few things and add some things to fix the organization of the website. After rereading and perfecting it, I am proud of my final ethnography paper and my website.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Drafting & Revising
I learned a lot of useful information about drafting and revising. When you are writing a first draft, it needs to be explanitory becasue that will help you when you revise later one. Howver, drafting and freewriting are different but sometimes can be confused. Freewriting helps your writing flow better and is a way to get all your thoughts out quickly. Drafting is frees all information about a research topic you have in your brain.
When reading about revising, I found a few notes to be very helpful to me. When revising, you should not look at the bad things in your work, but focus on the strengths and make them stronger. start revising at the end and only add background information in when it is really necessary for the reader to know. I found the note, "write for yourself, then your reader" to be particularly helpful. For me, this will make my writing much easier. Instead of focusing on what others will think of my writing, I should just write for myself and it will tur out better. Wehn revising my own work, I use the note of writing and editing out loud. It helps me catch a lot of my mistakes when I hear them. Also, by hearing myself, I can make sure that my words flow better and make sense.
When reading about revising, I found a few notes to be very helpful to me. When revising, you should not look at the bad things in your work, but focus on the strengths and make them stronger. start revising at the end and only add background information in when it is really necessary for the reader to know. I found the note, "write for yourself, then your reader" to be particularly helpful. For me, this will make my writing much easier. Instead of focusing on what others will think of my writing, I should just write for myself and it will tur out better. Wehn revising my own work, I use the note of writing and editing out loud. It helps me catch a lot of my mistakes when I hear them. Also, by hearing myself, I can make sure that my words flow better and make sense.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Interviewing & How to Listen
After reading serveal pages from my textbook, I learned valubable information about how I should conduct an interview. The first section discusses how to ask questions when conducting an interview. There are two tyes of interview questions: closed questions and open questions.
The book describes closed questions as "like those we answer on application forms or in magazines." These kind of questions do have the setbacks of being easily answered using single phrases and can halt further conversation.
Open questions are questions that are open ended and required more than just single phrased answeres. When asking these kind of questions, an interview should be actively listening and engaged in the informant's answere becasue the answere to these question can spark future questions.
The second sections describe how to be a good listener when interviewing. Good listeners actively pay attention to what their informant is saying. They also do not interrupt their informant and they encourage their informant with verbal acknowledgments to keep the conversation flowing.
The final sections give great examples of how to listen and what a succesful interview looks like usuing helpful techniques like balancing the writer's voice and the informants vioce when documenting and writing about the interview. The examples also show to let the informant remain in the forground telling their story as the main focus.
I founf this reading to be really helpful in guiding me in the right direction in conducting my interview and I will definitely use the techniques stated.
The book describes closed questions as "like those we answer on application forms or in magazines." These kind of questions do have the setbacks of being easily answered using single phrases and can halt further conversation.
Open questions are questions that are open ended and required more than just single phrased answeres. When asking these kind of questions, an interview should be actively listening and engaged in the informant's answere becasue the answere to these question can spark future questions.
The second sections describe how to be a good listener when interviewing. Good listeners actively pay attention to what their informant is saying. They also do not interrupt their informant and they encourage their informant with verbal acknowledgments to keep the conversation flowing.
The final sections give great examples of how to listen and what a succesful interview looks like usuing helpful techniques like balancing the writer's voice and the informants vioce when documenting and writing about the interview. The examples also show to let the informant remain in the forground telling their story as the main focus.
I founf this reading to be really helpful in guiding me in the right direction in conducting my interview and I will definitely use the techniques stated.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Bowling Interview
This essay was a lot different than the pervious one. In this essay there was not a lot of descriptive details of the surrounding or people. However, this essay was still full of interesting facts. The first paragraph was full of interesting facts about bowling; from fun facts like that bowling is the most widely played sport (I did not even know bowling was considered a sport!) to the history of bowling. I thought it was really sweet that mothers and their children played together. The author obtained good information from the people she was interviewing, like how old they were when they started bowling and how long they have been doing it. even though there was not too much descriptive detail, I still felt like I was there. For example, I got the vibe of how the people were just from how they answered question and talked. The subtitles were helpful becasue I could already have an idea about what was in that section before I read it. It also helped break the paper up. However, the conclusion seemed to be glued onto the last paragraph and did not really fit. I think a longer conclusion in a seperate paragraph would have been a better choice. Other than that, I thought that the essay was pretty good!
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Powerpoint Group Progress
Although today was the first day of our powerpoint presentation assignment, my group made a lot of progress. Our topic is about incorporating visuals in documents. So far, we have found useful information and have divided it up into specific topics that we find to be the most important. Instead of working on each topic individually, my group is going to work together. Today we took notes on the information we collected and figured out how to organize it. We also came up with a plan for next class on how we are going to create our powerpoint and what we need to accomplish. My group already knows valuable information about public speaking and presenting so I believe that this project will be a success.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
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