Research!

I’ve been falling behind in this class and it’s kind of catching up with me, but I’m still determined to learn from this class and end this semester strongly. Last week I met up with my professor to discuss my research proposal, something I was very confused about. We discussed what I had already written, which got pretty decent feedback, and what I needed to add on to make it a complete research proposal. I left my professors office feeling very confident about completing my research proposal and the future of my research paper. I was very excited about the idea my professor gave me about comparing autopsy files to the protocol found in the book “Guidelines for Reports by Autopsy Pathologists” by Vernard Irvine Adams Chief Medical Examiner, Hillsborough County, Florida. I just got the idea of possibly meeting up with the author for further questions since they might live a short drive away! That’s really exciting! Anyhow, so I began reading the book and the preface already is extremely informative; a lot of my questions have been answered in just a few paragraphs. I learned that “the case pathologist him- or herself (at a later date), attorneys, the family of the decedent, and other physicians read autopsy reports” and “Most reports produced by pathologists can be divided into objective and subjective elements, or, in other words, findings and opinions”(Adams V). I wonder if I can use certain parts of the book as different text partners because I would love to use the preface of this book, I’m just not sure how I would cite that. What about some of the autopsy files, can I use those as  text partners? How would I cite those? I’m truly beginning to enjoy this research process, just need to catch up!

Uncertainty

So it’s been three weeks since the semester began and there is definitely some uncertainty about this class. I’m not totally sure what we learned in class this week and from the looks on my classmates’ faces they are not too sure either. In the beginning of the semester I was excited to get to know how to read and write documents having to do with my field of choice which is forensic science.  We have been reading a lot of articles on discourse community and I am beginning to wonder how there articles will contribute to my final research paper. I feel like I’m shooting in the dark and I’m definitely lost in the sauce. I’m really starting to wonder what my professor has planned for the rest of the semester.

                I didn’t go to my professor’s office hours this week because I actually understood the article. Not only did I understand it I really enjoyed it. The article had to do with writing personal statements for medical school applications. I didn’t even know that a personal statement was a factor in the med school application process. It surprised me that med students are not taught how to write such a vital part of their application. I learned that there are so many different parts of the statement and that its completely different than the statement written for a job application. This week the article was clear but the class was definitely a little foggy for me. I will probably stop by my professor’s office to see what the future holds for me in this class.

Week 3-Library Adventure

It’s been three weeks since the semester has begun and I am starting to worry about my English class. The articles that I have been assigned are beginning to take its toll on me. They are long, drawn out complicated reads, and I can barely understand the concepts.  The fact that I can’t understand these articles worries me because I’m afraid I won’t be able to understand the discourse communities in my future career. I really need to find time to go over some of these topics with my professor because I feel like this entire course has to do with understanding articles and my grade will greatly suffer if I don’t get help FAST!

                This week during class we went on an adventure through the library to find a book, article, and journal having to do with our field of choice. More specifically we had to find these things in our field having to do with the writing and how people in our desired field writes. My field of choice is forensic science, but more specifically autopsies and medical examining. I thought this was going to be mission impossible, but luckily I found a book. It’s called “Principles of Forensic Report Writing”. I never thought I would borrow a book from the UCF library, but I did and it was quite an adventure. I’m really excited to learn more about my field and being able to write professional forensic reports and understand those reports. The table of content itself gets me excited for my future.

MLK "I Have a Dream" 50th Anniversary

This week during class we went over last week’s article, "Materiality and Genre". Apparently, I misunderstood the law part of the article. According to my classmates, the discourse community is not among the jurors, but from what the lawyer is communicating to the jurors. For example a lawyer might use “big words” that might confuse the jurors to mislead them and use more “elementary” words for something that will benefit his case and win the jurors over. I’m still wondering if there can be a discourse community among jurors that can also negatively affect the verdict of a case.

Wednesday August 28^th was the 50^th anniversary of the great Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I was very happy when Professor Dadurka told the class that would be watching the ground breaking speech. During this speech the class had to analyze the rhetorical strategies Dr. King used to make his speech more effective. I noticed that he used a lot of repetition throughout his entire speech. The first time Dr. King used repetition was when he was speaking about the “one hundred years” that African Americans were emancipated but were still oppressed by the color of their skin. The use of repetition made the people realized “wow, it’s really been this long since we’ve been freed, and nothing has changed”. This realization inspires the people to take their rights into their own hands as they rightfully deserve. As you can see, use of repetition also plays a large part on the people’s emotions, logos. I enjoyed this class very much and I learned a lot. I really like that my classmates and I can voice our opinions on a certain topic. LOVE IT!

Discourse Communities

August 21 was my first ENC 1102 class. I enjoyed my first class very much and I found my professor to be very interesting. All college students know that the first class is usually a class that's pointless because the professor just goes over the syllabus and students zone out. Surprisingly, I learned a lot during this class. The topic that interested me the most was "discourse communities". This was a term I had never had never heard of before. According to an unknown site “a discourse community is a group of communicators with a common goal or interest that adopts certain preferred ways of participating in public discussion.” In simpler terms a discourse community is a way a group of people, doctors, teachers, musicians, etc., communicate with each other. To me it’s when a group of friends have “inside jokes” that other people don’t understand or have to learn to understand. Another example  that came to mind during class is how my Trinidadian family communicates with each other. For example , when my mom asks someone “you put on weight?” or “you gettin’ fat?” that might seem offensive to someone of another culture but to her some people look better with more weight on and she is just making a friendly observation. There are many different types of discourse communities, and I’m learning to understand those of law, medicine, and pedagogy (teaching). I’m very excited to learn the different ways these professionals communicate through text. I truly hope that my understanding of discourse community is correct or else I’m going to be really confused while I’m reading this article. lol