When I was in High School, I had four weeks to write a five-paragraph essay, and I thought it was hard to do that, I would always wait until the last minute to do it. Then, when I entered college, having to do a six to eight-page paper was definitely a change. It also didn’t help that I thought my writing was the weakest part of my college career. The process of writing my annotated bibliography was one of the worst times here in college because I procrastinated until the last minute to finish writing and submit it. After writing that, I learned about myself that I like to wait until the last minute to do things, and then I’m expected a great grade, and that’s not how things work in college. I needed to start having a schedule of when I was going to write parts of my paper rather than trying to do it at night. I started applying that to my other classes and my grades in my writing when beating other things I thought I was better at. Then came our first shitty draft, and I was excited because I wanted to show Dianna that my writing was better than what my annotated bibliography was. I started writing that a week before it was due, I started with a footprint of what I wanted to write about, and I just started writing. When I turned in that paper, I felt happy with what I submitted, and I learned how I like doing my papers. I might be leaving this English class, but don’t worry; I will remember what I have learned throughout every book we have read and all of my revised work to put forth in my other class at Longwood University and my career in the future.

This semester, I have grown a lot as a writer. At the beginning of the semester, I was not confident in my writing and struggled to meet the academic expectations. I didn‘t always know how to organize my ideas or how to present them clearly. Over time, though, I‘ve become more confident and learned a lot about how to approach different types of writing.

I feel that one of the biggest changes I‘ve noticed is how much better I am at following different writing structures, especially for different subjects. For example, I have learned that social sciences use something called IMRaD, or Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion, whereas for humanities or other areas, you should use an argumentative and analytical type of writing structure. These differences in requirement have prepared me for writing at different classes.

Now that I am more confident, I feel ready for any upcoming writing assignments. I have learned to use sources better and to cite them properly, which made my work well-organized and accurate. I don‘t feel as uncertain about how to approach assignments anymore.

This will also help me later on in college because now I know that each subject has a different style of writing and I can adjust my writing to what the professors expect.

This will also help me in my future career. As a communication major, being able to write clearly is important, whether I‘m writing reports, proposals, or emails. Overall, this semester has made me a more confident writer, and I feel more prepared for future writing tasks in both school and my career. Thank you, Dr. Baldwin!

For my blog post this week, I wanted to talk about chapter 8 in AW(Academic writing). The title of this chapter is “Reading and Writing in the Social Sciences.” When I started reading, I found two major parts of the structure: quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative studies are the parts of reading and writing that “rely on collecting numerical data and performing statistical analyses to reveal findings in research”, some examples are chi-square tests and regression. Then, the opposite Qualitative studies “rely on language, observation, and reporting of individual human experiences to reveal findings in research.” Some elements you will notice when reading qualitative research like Method, Data, Results, and Participants. Then, we learn about mixed methods, it is a mix of qualitative and quantitative data and can be referred to as mixed-methodology studies. Then, as you keep scrolling down, you will learn about structure conventions and IMRaD format and how quantitative will reflect the conventions for scientific research using IMRaD format. Then, for language, we learned about active and passive voice. A passive voice is often preferable in writing in the social sciences and natural sciences because although it may seem wordy or unclear to some readers, in some instances, an active voice is a grammatical structure where the subject of a sentence performs the action of the verb. An example to learn is to find the differences in these two sentences: We asked participants to identify the factor that most influenced their decision, and Participants were asked to identify the factors that most influenced their decision. Another language feature common to writing in the social sciences is hedging, and I know I sound like I’m doing some gardening, but I promise it’s not, Hedging occurs when researchers want to make a claim or propose an explanation but also want to be extremely careful not to overstep their finding based on actual data. But if you are struggling to organize your sources, you can go to page 213 and see all you need is to establish your topic, the next step is to conduct your research, and then the last step before writing is the hardest and is called “synthesizing sources,” and it describes the relationship between the among researchers’ ideas or approaches. What I find lacking is what I struggle with. When I research something, it makes no sense, and I get confused because I have never heard of it, but I need to learn so I can write about it.

I’m so excited for the next semester, and I’m kind of surprised that I’m not nervous. Actually, I take that back I’m scared because I don’t want my classes to be that difficult. I had a really hard time with my classes. I took chemistry and biology simultaneously, and I know it was stupid. I know it’s hard to say I want easier classes because I know it never gets easier, all I want is a break, and I’m counting down the days until Thanksgiving and Christmas break!

I register for classes right at seven o clock; I woke up at 6:30 just to be ready and get all the classes I wanted. When I went to the right plan for the plan I created, I hit click, and it only took one of my classes. Then I looked at my criminal justice classes because that’s my major, and guess what there were none, so I ended up with no classes from my major. But I wanted to take the good out of the situation, so I decided to focus on my minor in sociology, I took three sociology classes. But the number one thing I needed was NOT a morning class, I am not an early bird, so my earliest class is at 10 o’clock, and I’m grateful for that.

I couldn’t tell you how excited I am for spring break!! I will be excited to do no schoolwork and just hang out with my family and friends from back home. I’m not doing anything crazy, but this summer, I’m going to work my butt off. I’m now realizing as a broke college student that I need to go into college with more money than I did this year. I spent all my money from my job to decorate my job, but always my dorm is so cute, so I’m not going to complain.

In the reading AW chapter 8 it talks about Reading and Writing in the Social Sciences. The first thing I am going to talk about is structure. Common elements that are found with structure are quantitative and qualitative studies. With quantitative studies the more quantitative the study is you are more likely to use the MRAD format. IMRAD format is Introduction, method, results and discussion. With introduction you want to give a brief overlap on what you did with the study. With methods are quantitative and qualitative studies. With results you just put all your results that were found in the study. Finally discussion. In the decision you talk about why you did the study and its impact on doing the study. Other elements found in structure are conclusions, titles, abstracts, acknowledgements, references, and appendices.  Common elements that are found with language are active and passive voice. Active voice is when someone is doing the action., In passive voice however someone is receiving the action. Also what is talked about in language is hedging. Hedging is when you want to make a point but not overstep the point. Common elements that are found with references are in text documentation. In text documentation is when you are making a reference for one of your sources in your paper. What is also found are summary and paraphrasing. After reading and writing a literature review you want to synthesize sources. What synthesizing sources is the process of identifying and describing the relationship between and among researchers. Another way to organize your sources is making a source synthesis chart. The author essay the source synthesis chart helps with visualizing areas that overlap in your sources. In the study what I find lacking in the information is the study is really not anything in my opinion it is all information that I am newly learning.          

Starting with the common elements of structure that are discussed in chapter 8. Usually following the different structures of either quantitative, qualitative, or a mixture of the two called, “Mixed-methods”. In quantitative writing it usually follows the case of IMRaD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion). The Introduction is where evidence or what is already know is most likely to be found in the report. Methods is when either quantitative, qualitative, or mixed are identified in the report. Results are usually presented by using heading as opposed to a title when following the IMRaD format. In the chapter there is an example of a results heading with a subheading just below it, showing that this is where they would be found. Other examples of structure of a report are conclusions, abstracts, acknowledgements, references, and titles. These all are headings or explanations where something would be when writing.

Another common element is language. Such examples include active and passive voice. Examples of this would be how the sentence is laid out. When the topic of the sentence comes first that is active voice, ie, “They asked her” would be active. “She was asked”, would be passive. Hedging is another example of language. This is when authors want to make a comment that isn’t completely fact without making a false claim. Using phrases like “seems as if”, “looks like”.

In regard to reference in writing there are different ways to have it. MLA, APA are examples of in text documentation. Paraphrasing is also reference, when not making a direct quote one would need to paraphrase or summarize.

How to organize sources for a literature review? When you have little knowledge on a topic it might be less of a review and more about learning about that topic. When you are comfortable with a topic you have more knowledge of organizing the information and honing in a specific topic you know a lot about without research. After picking your topic research comes next. After researching and organizing your topic, you need to synthesize your sources. This means the trends among research. How does the research from one person compare to different research from someone else.

Social sciences focus on studying human behavior, human systems, and interactions between behavior and systems. According to the reading, “professionals in the field of the social sciences help us understand why we do what we do as well as how processes (political, economic, personal, etc.) contribute to our lives” (183). Reading and writing in the social sciences includes many common elements of structure, language, and reference and this chapter of A Guide to Academic Writing discusses them.
One of the main methods of structure in the social sciences is the IMRaD, which stands for Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. Starting with the introduction, researchers establish a context for the study and provide an appropriate background on the topic. In the methods section, researchers identify the methods used, explaining their reasons for choosing them. In the results, researchers often present their results by using headings and subheadings and simply stating what they found. The last section, discussion, is where researchers explain the significance of their findings and reflect on their findings. Other structural conventions in the social sciences can include titles, abstracts, conclusions, acknowledgements, references, and appendices.
When it comes to language conventions, social scientists use various languages depending on the audience and genres. The different aspects of language consist of voice and the concept of hedging. In this chapter we see that passive voice is used more often than the active voice. It is explained that this is because “skillful use of the passive voice can actually foster a sense that researchers are acting objectively or with neutrality” (208). The concept of hedging is when researchers want to propose a claim based on their findings but want to avoid overstepping the scope of their findings. To do this, researchers use specific words or phrases to essentially “beat around the bush”. These phrases include but are not limited to, probably, perhaps, some, possibly, sometimes, might, likely, it appears that, apparently, and partially. Hedging is most often used considering the fact that many claims about human behavior are made and that not all individuals will agree with the conclusion.
The last common element of structure is references. Regarding social sciences, the reference style most often used is APA. This reference style includes many distinguished features, specifically when it comes to in-text documentation and summarizing/paraphrasing. Within both aspects, there are comparisons that can be made to the MLA documentation we have previously learned about.
The process of writing a literature review, as discussed on page 213, includes many different steps. One of the most important steps of this process is organizing the gathered sources. An individual must find the most efficient way to organize their sources to keep their research in line. Two ways that they can accomplish this are by producing an annotated bibliography or a source synthesis chart. Either way will provide a good foundation for the organization of the individual’s sources, ultimately keeping them on track and allowing for the visualization of the areas of overlap in research.