Who Am I?

The author of my article, Margena A. Christian, proved to be extremely difficult to find information on. The first web site I started at was Google. I typed in her name and about seven websites popped up that actually pertained to her. The first web site I clicked on to find information about her ended up just being a web site to look for articles people have written. The second web site I went to required me to join the web site if I wanted to find out any information on my author. It also allows anyone who joins to be able to contact that person through the website. I chose not to join because I really didn’t need to contact my author. The third link I looked at gave me information on the wrong Margena Christian, and by that time I was getting really tired of looking for information about her. So all I was able to find out at that point was that I am from the same place as her, Illinois. And at this point I also only found out the month and year in which she was born. Just as I started to get excited that I might actually find a bio about her, I clicked on a link and it led me completely off base. That website allowed you to do a background check on the person you are searching for, a history of their addresses for the past twenty years, and find out who their family and friends are. Dang! I wasn’t trying to put a hit on her or anything! I just wanted to know a little bit about how she got to where she is today or at least find a reliable website that did that. Ethos appeal relies on the credibility of the author and if the author is not creditable, you cannot trust what they write about, let alone include it in your writing. I didn’t find one creditable website during my whole search. There were plenty of disadvantages to where I chose to look in that all the websites led me astray. So anyway, my only option left was to join that website where I would have to set up my own profile in order to look at anyone else’s and that was not going to happen. The only advantage to that was that I probably would have found information on my author had I done it. And anyway, I’m already on facebook. That’s enough.

"Peer Review"

The peer review in class on Monday was extremely helpful. It is always an advantage to any writer to have their work read and criticized so that they know what their strengths and weaknesses are and where they may need to improve in their writing. I learned that the strengths in my argument were my transitions from different points and that my arguments throughout my whole paper seemed to be concrete and back up my overall argument well. I learned that something that could improve my paper is using a personal experience to demonstrate my argument. Having peer review also lets me see strengths in other people’s writing that I may not have in mine or catch mistakes in their writing that may also be in mine. Peer review gives us the opportunity to hear constructive criticism on our writing and can only help it improve. The only negative thing I have to say about peer review is that I do not think we have enough time to efficiently review on another’s papers. I kind of felt rushed and may not have given or received complete and in-depth feedback on my and others paper due to the lack of time. But overall, I liked peer review because now I know how I need to improve in my writing.