Nathan Houston's Blog

 This class has taught me a lot more than just English. This class has taught me how to be more prepared for college. I have learned time management with work, class, and other activities. But in this class, I've learned about creating good well-researched essays that are written MLA. I've learned how to better research topics to find experts in the field. While using their words I develop my own ideas and express them. I've learned that as a writer I must appeal to my audience and find how to communicate my point to that specific audience. Overall I have enjoyed this class and incredibly thankful to have learned all I have.

 I never really grasped academic writing in high school until senior year when we wrote our senior thesis'. This taught me how to be prepared for college and to research my topics properly. Before doing complete research I would just wing it off of my own ideas and did not have professionals back me up. McClure's essay about "Googlepedia: Turning Information Behaviors into Research Skills" talks about which sources are creditable and which are not. Before taking this class and my senior thesis class I would just use Google or Wikipedia for information and not websites such s google scholar to find good sources. Another difference is using the first person in college writing. this is a lot different from high school where you would almost be crucified if you were to use the first person on a paper. Maddalena states, "First of all, the more “voices” you add to the conversation, the more confusing it gets. You must separate your own interpretations of scholars’ clai...