Amidst the stress and general feeling of drop-dead fatigue as midterm season (Round 1 of 3) comes to its peak, ENGL 105 stands out as one of my few classes lacking an exam. Despite this, ENGL 105 has also reached an end of a chapter with our Unit 1 Assignments, the popular health science article, being posted to the public website successfully. After continuing a pace of finishing 1 Feeder assignment per week—setting down foundations and paving the path to the ultimate goal of writing a popular health article—it was suddenly time to actually block out the time to sit down, put on some music, and seriously write out 1000 to 1500 words of well-researched and professional dialogue on the topics we’d chosen.
In class on Tuesday, we workshopped our Unit 1 papers for the last time, going through each other’s papers and providing feedback about content clarity as well as grammar and other annoying but necessary citation details. After peer-reviewing work multiple times these past few weeks, I feel that we’ve fully figured out patterns to helpful commenting that both bring attention to possible issues and suggest solutions. Following class, there were less than 36 hours left to put on finishing touches and then submit a final paper to the public site that would count for 15% of the course’s final grade. Thankfully, no one seemed to have much trouble working out how to post on the website and posts started flooding in several hours before the deadline (and defying the college student’s stereotype of procrastination in the process).
After submission, there was no time to rest. With Unit 2, The Social Sciences, beginning in Thursday’s lesson, we were tasked with finding a culture or group on campus that we were interested in observing and creating an ethnography for. Additionally, class time was spent becoming more familiar with a social scientist’s mindset. We dug into what scholars in the social sciences value in their research, the data they study, and the definition of an ethnography. As it turns out, social scientists are interested in quantitative data like natural scientists, but also value qualitative data to obtain the human perspective and detail to an otherwise numerical answer. On one hand, it’s more well-rounded from having extra information, and on the other, it’s more complex and trickier to interpret. Ethnographies are composed primarily of these qualitative data because descriptions are necessary for illustrating what a group’s culture and identity is like. Following this introduction to the social sciences, Feeder 2.1 was assigned and due Monday, a fast deadline likely meant to launch us into Unit 2 with the momentum we ended Unit 1 with.
At the beginning of Unit 1, I had looked at the timeline and winced at the time given to write such a lengthy paper, imagining that it would be painful; however, the actual process turned out to be relatively smooth thanks to the prior research and thought about questions that would need to be answered in the paper. In essence, I believe the main takeaway of the Unit we’ve just closed has been the usefulness of doing the proper preparation for writing a paper. This week has been one of the most fast-paced ones so far, and I, at least, would be happy to return to a slower pace soon. For now, though, good luck to everyone who still has a midterm to complete—I’m sure you’ll do fine!
Featured Image Source:
[Untitled image of a library bookshelf]. Stanislaus Public Library. https://www.stanislauslibrary.org/