Sunday, May 10, 2009
Reflecting on writing your observational reflection
Reflect on what it was like to write your observational reflection on your experience at Project Homeless Connect. First, explain how the research you did for this assignment differed from the research you did for the first two assignments. (That is, using your assignments, how would you explain the differences between working with texts vs. working from your own observations?) Second, what did you do differently in this assignment to appeal to a more popular, non-academic audience?
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Well, maybe I didn’t do something correctly, or maybe its because of the style for the first essay that I wrote, but I don’t really see much of a difference between the two. Granted, the first assignment had me analyzing, but in a way I was still telling a story. I wasn’t narrating their lives but I was looking at the emotions involved in each photo, just not knowing the story that went along with it. I suppose they were sort of opposites for me in a sense. The first I analyzed to discover the emotion, and the latter of the two, I had already known the story and didn’t need to analyze it.
ReplyDeleteBoth required the use of secondary sources to back up my claims, and both demanded that I have a claim. Naturally, the second assignment was rather different from these but still slightly similar. I didn’t need to do any analysis or discover emotion or stories but rather had to take the component that’s missing from the other two and make that the assignment. I had to remove the emotion and look at the facts.
So while I see how they differ, I also see how they are also similar
So first off, this essay was very different from the previous ones because the whole thing was very much I-based. The focus was now on my experience and feelings toward a matter, and less on the research done on it. I suppose this should be easier, but in a way I found it a little harder, because you want to do justice to your experience, and that isn’t always possible in words. So that was the first thing that I noticed. As far as research goes, I found myself going about it in a similar fashion to the previous ones. I was looking for a certain thing that I knew had to be out there, and I used that to support what I had already seen and wanted to prove. The type of information, however, was very different. Using my peers in the place of PhD scientists is something a little bit funny.
ReplyDeleteAs far as appealing to a wider audience, I was able to delve more into the creative writing aspect of the piece. I was able to narrate a story, and talk about the power of a human, instead of about charts, surveys and interviews. I was able to pretend to be funny, or describe my sadness. The whole thing was given the space to be personable, which is always more appealing to a larger non-academic audience. The piece was fun.
The observational reflection for Project Homeless Connect seemed a lot easier to write than the past two papers. The reason why is that instead of having to look for information that could fit into the paper as I was writing, it was my own observations that led the way. It was also helpful to have my own research, because that way I could pick up pieces from throughout the day and used them in my piece as I pleased. I didn’t need to be looking for a quote that fit, because the memories of the day were all in my mind. Writing for a non-academic audience also gave me a bit more freedom. I felt like I could express myself and use my ethos, rather than in the last two papers, where we could only use facts and not include our thoughts. It felt good to actually be able to share my own experiences and thoughts. It was also less stressful to know that the people who’d be reading this would probably be interested in the subject matter, and through this I felt like I was writing something worthwhile. All these reasons made this paper a lot more fun to write than the last two.
ReplyDeleteFor the observational reflection the research I did was very different from other research. As I began writing I did a complete over view of my day and concluded with the idea that I wanted to research. Through doing that, I was better able to give the reader a better understanding of why I felt that I didn’t make such a huge impact even though my client gave me a hug at the end of the day. I pulled responses from our blog about how clients reacted and what they said at the end of the day in order to back up my stance. Working with texts is different because it can come across as not as personal or intriguing. With texts, I feel that sometimes a reader may just skip over it or not care as much as they would with someone else’s first-hand experience.
ReplyDeleteIn order to appeal to a more popular audience, I asked questions in order to try to get the readers to ask themselves how they felt about the situation before I began my discussion. That way, they’re more personally tuned in based on what they’re answer is to my question. Also, I used a little bit more informal speech that would appeal to everyone instead of just academics. This made the paper easier to read because there aren’t any huge long words and such.
The observational reflection that we just completed was different than the other two assignments that I have completed because it was my own research. Although there was research from other sources added into my reflection to support my research this was the majority from me. I really enjoyed this assignment because I got to use my own observations and not just the work of others. I also got to make my own point and conclusion about the qualitative research and not have to follow the conclusion of others research. In the first two assignments we had to use what the other primary research stated to come to an overall point but in this assignment I was the researcher and so I got to write the article based off of my observations. The second assignment that we did was working towards the qualitative assignment because we were taking different research and finding a common point to make. This was extremely difficult to incorporate very different sources into one article. Writing my observational reflection was difficult but seemed to flow easier knowing that it was my observations and not me trying to prove others research fits together into one paper.
ReplyDeleteIn this assignment I had a different audience to appeal to, so that made it more challenging to write. I appealed to a more popular, non-academic audience by describing my research in detail but in an exciting way. I did not just write a research article with my findings but incorporated the story that went along with why my research was significant. This allowed for any audience to relate and understand my research not just academic researchers. I liked writing my observations more than others because it allowed me to make my own conclusions and connections about what I saw.
I like writing this paper more than I liked writing the other two pieces. The research was a lot easier because it was all my memories so I didn't have to look around in books and find page number and write bibliographies and stuff like that. I felt like I was able to just write and it made writing this paper a lot easier for me. I loved that I didn't have to try and find a book to get quotes from to help me explain my text. What I did differently is I was able to tell more of a story. I told the story of my day and also got the main point of my paper across as well. I was able to use more of my voice instead of someone else's. This project felt like I had a lot more freedom and it made writing the piece a lot easier for me.
ReplyDeleteIt was a little bit challenging to write a reflection on my experience at Project Homeless Connect. I found it difficult to focus my thought and feelings from the day into a well organized paper with a thesis to tie it all together. However, unlike the first two papers, the research that was included in this paper was quite different from the first two papers. The first paper was a thesis in regards to a complete novel with a second reference as support. These references were not real world studies. The second paper was constructed using various qualitative studies to form an argument. This form of writing required a great deal of in-depth research and demanded multiple scholarly studies. This reflection piece, however, contained a very different collection of sources. This paper, rather than being formed around sources or using fictional sources to support an argument, merely used various sources to reflect and compare other feelings and experiences. The sources were much less significant to the paper’s thesis, but they helped connect my own experience during PHC with other’s experiences.
ReplyDeleteThis reflection piece also varied in regards to the audience it was meant to attract, and thus how the paper was written. Unlike the first two pieces, this paper was more personal. I referenced myself throughout, and provided insight into my feelings and the affect this day had on my life. It was also more of a in-depth qualitative study, rather than based on numerous qualitative studies. This attracts a much different audience than a scholarly article. This attracts the average person, literate or not, and connects them with my personal story.
The first two assignments were more like objective analyses of a number of articles. Since the main ideas and contents of the assignments were heavily relied on the articles we read, they didn’t actually involve many original thoughts. But for this assignment, we were asked to come up with an argument or claim and use reading materials to prove it. For this one, articles were in a subordinate position and organized around the main idea, and it was more about what I thought not what the articles said. I also feel the first two assignments appeared to be more academic and formal as the articles I used were all scholarly sources and adopted from sociological journals. But the last one was more informal, casual, and more like a story or novel. To appeal to a non-academic audience, I used a lot of descriptions and focused on details.
ReplyDeleteThe research for my observational reflection was very different in that first and foremost, I collected the research in the field. Working with my own observations was very different from working with texts. With texts, I usually have an idea already formulated in my head and I search for texts that will support that idea. Writing the literature review was a little different, as I was just trying to answer a question without arguing for one side. With the observational reflection, I let the observations shape my ideas, instead of trying to find research that fits my ideas. In order to make my observational reflection appeal to a more popular audience, I included a sizeable amount of narrative. In that narrative, I also did not try to be the objective researcher that I would have to be when presenting data.
ReplyDeleteFor our third paper assignment we actually need to do a observation ourselves, which is the day of Project Homeless Connect. On this day, we had to help a homeless client to get the things that she/he wants to accomplish. For the first paper, we just use the information from a book and a secondary source about the book or article to support my views. And for the second paper assignment, we had to find five sources about an issue we had came out and use the source for the paper, not our views, just find the issue of the sources and put it in the paper. So, the second assignment is mainly about the sources. And the most difference issue among the three paper assignment is the third assignment is about our own experiences, and then writes an observation about the experience. The second paper is about using other people’s scholarly sources to write a paper. The first paper is about using a story to support the issue of homeless (the story is fictional).
ReplyDeleteThe observational reflection on Project Homeless Connect was a fun paper to write. It seemed a lot easier than all of the other papers because it was my own observations instead of having to do a lot of research and trying to go off what I learned from others. After I was able to see didn’t observations at project homeless connect, I was able to use my own research to write this paper. Knowing the information from being in this situation made it easier because I was able to experience it for myself. This paper was different from the other assignments because I didn’t have to go out and find sources to use for it, instead I used my own observations. Working with my own observations was easier. I knew how I felt when I was there and knew what happened, which gave me all the information that I needed. Going out and finding information, I feel like I don’t fully understand and feel the same way about it. The thing that I did differently was use my own experience to prove my point instead of going out and finding others opinions.
ReplyDeleteThe first one and the second one required more research on it. The third one is based on my own truly experiences. The first and second one is kind of harder than the third one, but every one of them has their special advantages. The first one is related to the book “Ragged Dick”, and plus my homeless movie’s review. The second one is about the homeless veterans, this one requires more research on it, I used database in order to find out the useful information about the homeless veterans. For the third one is something we done and we gathered the observations first, then have some research but not as much or hard as the second one. Working with texts is kind of gloomy job for me, but to work with my client is very interesting for me. The third one is about my own experiences on the day of PHC. I can use more of my own voice instead of borrowing from the texts.
ReplyDeleteResearch on this observational paper was much easier than the literature review. First off, there was a lot less information to synthesize and draw from; I also was easily able to identify situations that connected to my experiences quite well from my peers. Secondly, I was able to use sources from my literature review to support my experiences and Barbara Ehrenreich's study as well. The fact is the information was laid out right in front of me rather than having to dig and search for the information like I had to in the literature review.
ReplyDeleteThis paper was also much more different in the style and voice of the paper compared to the literature review. I used my voice a lot more openly and stated my own opinions. I used as much detail and portrayed my narrative voice as vividly as possible to connect with the audience. The paper was a lot more relaxed and self-driven as I was commenting on my own experiences.