My English 200 Journal: On writing

Journal: ENG 200 02L, Fall 2005, at SCSU.
My English 200 Journal: On writing
By Gene F. Brady Jr., 12/05/2005

-My Thoughts on Blogging:
The idea of blogging I found to be very helpful on writing out thoughts. To me, Blogging is like your own personal journal where you can write personal thoughts, share them, and talk about your ideas and beliefs. I found that blogging also helps you to keep track of you thoughts or ideas when you wrote them and posted them. I love the idea in which people can post a comment on your blog about how they thought how cool our blog was. I think blogging will change the way we write papers, talk to our friends, and also build new relationships towards other people towards having similar interest.

While looking at different blogs that people put up, it seems that people can write about the most basic things like throwing up, to talk about political debates, computer games, movies, hobbies, personal interest, education, and sex. It seem that computers are becoming more of a side companion to computer users. Helping us to talk to friends and other people in a ideal community based setting. Between the different blog providers, Blogger.com for me was very easy to use. For others blogging provider, I heard that they are easy too! My sister has a blog, and she said it was easy, and said that she like the blog provider that she had.

From a review I wrote on "Reflecting on "US youths use internet to create," from BBC NEWS, I tell people that, "I think the idea of web blogging is cool, the idea of sharing thoughts on music, pictures, artwork, and stories! My sister showed me her web blog, and she had a lot of things on there dealing with pictures of her friends. I believe blogging lets us copyright our thoughts and interest faster then on a personal website or e-mail, so other people can see them quicker. Blogging is not just for personal use, but blogging also creates the link between communication through passive thinking and active learning.

That's what I believe the Internet is all about, sharing information and communicating through ideas and beliefs at rapid speed. I believe that the idea of communicating with other youths through blogging has become a new kind of trend like e-mail, but better! It's like having an e-mail in which it’s a personal webpage, and it’s really easy to edit, take stuff out, and add new stuff. Finding out that this blogging trend is being "spearheading" by girls, blogging to be seems to be similar to the days when young teenage girls use to share scrapbooks and journals with pictures with friends.

Blogging, from my personal experience, has opened a new door (in my mind) towards how we can share information or communicate easier with other bloggers towards sharing information and ideas. The idea that blogging doesn't cost anything is great, and its easy to set up without worrying about signing up for another term or paying monthly fees. Adding pictures is easy too. With a blog, it doesn't have to be about one specific topic or even be personal, and the great thing about it is that you can add something later to what you've all ready wrote down. You can save what you wrote as a draft, and then publish it later when you’re down revising it. I know when you have a personal web site; it might be hard updating or adding information frequently. With a blog, you don't have to wait long to see what you published. Time is a valuable thing, and I would have to say that, I hate waiting for things to happen.

Self-expression I believe is an important part of blogging, in which you can find other people with blogs have similar interest. The idea of crediting people, in which you can post a commit on their web blog, is a great idea. I believe Blogging is active and passive at the same time. You can write something down, and someone can commit on it later. Then, other people would have commits on what they thought or agree with you or someone else, and you can commit on their thoughts. You can also get key insights from other people that commit your blog. The idea of posting commits I believe is the best way to talk about people's ideas and beliefs and share your thoughts. I would say blogging is probably better then an e-mail and quicker then a personal web page. In a chat room, you only come upon specific areas of information. When your blogging, you learn about how one thinks and you learn what they are interested in right away.

On the idea of youths picking up this new technical enhancement towards communication, I believe more people will switch to blogging than setting up a personal web. I feel that blogging has become or is becoming a new social icon in cyberspace. Not so much toward the chat room aspect, but a more in-depth fundamental practice towards learning about self interest and education."

I believe this to be true, in which I say in my reflection on Zinnser’s “Writing on Well,” "The focus on soaking up someone else’s thoughts or beliefs on a subject or personal matter and taking that information and expanding on it. That what I want people to feel, I want them to soak up my information my thoughts, that why I'm embraced to continue blogging." (From my web blog, at http://reflectingonliterature.blogspot.com)

-The Class E-mail List:
Based on the idea of a class e-mail list, I didn't know what to expect from it. When the class first picked up on the idea, and having the teacher help us set up the class e-mail list, it was just like setting up an account. That's what it exactly was, setting up a class account at the Southern website. When everyone (that was in class at the time) was logged into are Southern e-mail list for ENG 200, our teacher wanted us to have a class discussion through our class e-mail list. The e-mail list was like a chat room, in which people can post what they need to say about our topic on the class readings. I hate the chat room aspect in trying to get your ideas across the room. There is too much going on, and trying figure out whose talking about what and who’s taking to whom. To read every post that is being posted one person or another, you just can't keep up with what's going on. From my personal prospective, the class e-mail didn't turn out to be quite effective in class, as the blogging. The set up was not that exciting, and I thought the class e-mail list seem to be just another e-mail, in the box that you really pay attention to. The class e-mail list seems very passive and not active like a blog. The downside to the class e-mail list was, it just seem boring, you can't even personalize it!

-Thoughts on making a webpage:
With all the work and final project that come around at the end of the semester, who really has time to make a personal website. I have a hard time just trying to revise to two essays, write a final analysis paper on blogging and communicating through cyberspace, get an art history research paper done, study for Spanish final exam, and get my final art projects for Graphic Design and Metal work done. The idea of making a personal web page is great, but is that more important the getting two important essays done for class? Its great for someone to look at your final papers on the personal website that you mage, but I don't want to put an unfinished product on a website that not worthy of being there. Who wanted to see a paper that's not done.

There is some much you have to consider when making a website. I believe time is a big issue on getting a web page done. With the idea of making a website, you have to worry about what your set-up is going to be like, how many pages your going to have on it, what's going to be on you website, what you want to include. Also you have to make sure that your links and pages are linked up and set up right. You also have to make sure that your work is saved properly, know how to re-open it, and make sure that you have every file (picture, html, text, and pages) in the right place. You only have time to do so much, while also looking for an internship for next semester. I thought that it was too much, that the teacher was given us. I felt that I was becoming over whelmed with stuff to do. I respect what the teacher wants from us, but I believe that the time we have to do a website was limited. I believe time is a big issue on getting a web page done. I’m not saying that I don’t want to put in the effort, considering that I think it would be cool to have my own web page.

-Blogs vs. Webpages:
After learning how to set up my pages and set up my hyperlinks to each of them, I got going in designing my web page. Still, I need to have my first two papers revised and reworked. So far, I have six pages up and link to the index home page, I took a beautiful picture to use for my title page. The picture I used was from a photographer named René Asmussen, A Swedish photographer. I also added him as a link to my web page, because I just love his work. I thought it was important to add my blog links to my home page, because I want people to see other works I did in cyberspace. I

In what I say about how blogging is quicker and easier than setting up a home page, from "My Thoughts on Blogging" blog, at Blogger.com, I still think its true. Still, I believe based on setting up a personal home page, you have limitations on what you can set up in a blog. In a personal web page, you have more room to expand your ideas based on the format and set up for your web page. You can add a set up for pictures like you can on a blog, from a webpage. The only problem is that, you have to make sure that each fill is placed in the right files, make sure all the hyper links are in place, and makes sure that you have your picture pages set up in the order you put them in. Putting pages together in a web page takes a lot of time; even knowing how your page set up is going to be like, takes a lot of time.

When you post a picture in a blog, all you have to do is load the picture on to your current 'create page' and your all set. Still, there is a problem, if you want to have your pictures posted up in a gallery like format. On Blogger.com, you first would have to set up a account with a BloggerBot, a photo gallery host, just so you can publish pictures to your site (gallery format). To have a photo gallery account to your blog, the supporting system format that you would need to have is Microsoft® Windows® 98/Me/2000/XP300MHz processor, 64 MB of RAM, 50 MB free disk space, Internet Explorer 5.0., just to down load the program. If you don't have this requirement, you would probably be out of luck. The good thing about have a photo host is, it let you send high-quality pictures instantly and securely over any speed connection, even dialup. With Hello, you can send hundreds of high quality pictures to your friends in just seconds—you can’t do that with email.

How is Hello different from a website?
Websites are great when you want to show your pictures to the whole world. But it can take hours to put a new gallery online; after you pick your favorites, edit, resize, and upload them, you still have to sit around and wait for someone to come and see them. And how would you know if anyone did?
When you use Hello to share pictures, they arrive on your friend’s screen immediately, without the hassle of uploading them to a public website. Your friends can download print quality copies of their favorite pictures to print right at home, which most “picture sharing” websites won’t let you do.

With Hello’s file sharing technology, they only have to download high quality versions of the ones they really like. Everything else comes in at a smaller size, optimized for viewing on-screen. (From https://secure.hello.com/how_it_works.php)


With a personal webpage, it would be hard to get this kind of features and technology on your personal website without having to buy supporting media software. If you want to publish a personal website, you have to publish it some how through a web provider like a: FTP, File System to publish your html site location. Like I said before based on my thoughts on blogging, blogging is easier and faster to post than a personal webpage. You don't have to deal with all the hassle of finding where to set up links and pages, you don't have to deal with setting up a web layout, knowing where to put the hyperlinks, buttons, and counters. Making a personal web pages takes a lot of work, and having the time to do that work can be limited to other important activities that you have outside of class. In conclusion on what I believe to be better, Blogs or personal websites, it depends on the demands in which you want to take and the time you have to take to get things done. While trying to set up my personal website, I lost more time on focusing on my final to essay.

Trouble with revising my first two essays:
Over the time that I spent in class, I learned a lot about my self as a writer, in which I need more time to analyze my information, then just jotting notes. With the teacher asking us to write a final journal entry, have two essays revised, and a website done within in a span of two to three weeks is a little overwhelming. While in the process of writing a second essay, I felt it was hard for me to find time to revise my first essay. I admit that I didn't give myself enough time to revisit my first essay, even I didn't have time to revisit my second essay. I believe at the time, I become so into the idea of blogging, I wrote all my reactions on the writings that were assigned one right after the other; in which I pointed out every little important detail that I thought was important to talk about.

In the process of just trying to revise and rewrite my essays, I feel that I have to rewrite and revise each essay over with the given information that I have. With the second essay, I feel that it doesn't click, the paper doesn't directly have a issue or focus. I talk about the things that are happening based on how kids are getting access to porn, but I also talk about how much porn is out there. I don't talk about porn as a good thing or a bad thing, I just put it out there with not real point given. To add up in what I need to add in my paper, I still need to add the assigned readings to my essays. I still need to talk about how Woolley, Barlow, Turkle, and other writers talk about the issues dealing with cyberspace. The personal problem that I'm dealing with, is that I feel that my papers don't add up to any conclusion. Personally, I believe that my conclusions haven't made it to my essays yet. I believe, to make my papers add up to something, in which they point out a specific question or concerns with an issue. I will need to have more time to go through what I have already written, and question the important key points and get rid of the not so important points out. Another problem that lead me away from getting into revising my essays, was my Art History research paper that was due on Monday, December 5th, 2005. I worked so hard on finding out about a certain subject, I got lost in trying to get my essays revised and rewritten.

Reflection and Looking on:
As a senior, I learned a lot from taking this class, but I still have to be motivated to get things done. As a person trying to learn how to become a better writer, I believe that I need to focus more on my writing as a writer and not as a reporter. I need to use more of my thoughts on a subject then someone else, but still have a clear view on the subject with good back up information. I believe writing doesn't come natural without knowing where you learned it. What I learn from blogging and writing the reflections on are class assigned readings, I learned to become more open about what I thought as a reader then as a writer. I didn’t feel pressured by talking about what I believe to be important, based on the readings by Benjamin Woolley, John Perry Barlow, William Gibson, Lance Ulanoff, Lowell Monke, and William Zinnser. I fell in love with their readings in which I wanted to express the importance of every idea that was important to me and towards learning. I might have focus too much of my attention to what they had to say, then focusing on getting my papers revised.


From reading the books by Manuel Puig and Margaret Atwood, reading has become a new energy of life for me, since I took Professor Cynthia A. Stretch English 217, at Southern Connecticut State University, during fall 2003. By taking Will Hochman's ENG 200 02L course at Southern Connecticut, he's helping learn so much on learning how to focus myself towards understanding how I write. I find myself reading more everyday, even when it comes down to not writing class assignments. In my free time, I learn that read can be so fascinating, reading about music guitar players and how to play something on the guitar. That kind of motivation led me into realizing that I can read, in which I thought, 'you know, reading assignments are easier than doing math homework. When I go home or go to the library, first thing I do towards doing my homework assignments is my reading. After that, I can get the other stuff done, like math, Spanish, or design projects for graphic design.

In the past few months, the confidence I built and the eagerness to learn has been fueled by the people who helped me to get where I am now. With each reflection that I write, I learn more about my self as a person through what I learned from others. William Zinnser Points out something I thought was very important tool to me. With Zinnser's idea for Words and Usage, I love how he points out that we should make habit of writing and writing. "Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written by earlier masters. Writing is learned by imitation. If anyone asked me how I learned to write, I'd say I learned by reading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and trying to figure out how they did it." (Zinnser, 35)

In my reflection on "On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction," By William Zinnser, I pour my heart on what I believe in towards what he saying. I learn to focus my attention on what I believe to be the most important towards my learning. By understanding how we interpret ideas, authors like Zinnser, talks about Style. I like the idea of how Zinnser talks about other writer's writings, in which he gives us to read. He tells us his reaction, which I thought was touching. "There's a man writing about a subject I have absolutely no interest in. Yet, I enjoy this piece through the smiling beauty of the writer’s style. I like the rhythms, the unexpected but refreshing words ('deified', 'allure,' 'cackling'); the specific details like the Laced Wyandotte and the brooder house. But mainly what I like is that this is a man telling me unabashedly about a love affair with poultry that goes back to 1907. It's written with humanity and warmth, and after three paragraphs I know quite a lot about what sort of man this hen-lover is." (Zinnser, 28).

The idea of personal affection is a strong element of writing in which I feel in love with that. The idea that you can make some one understand your needs and desires through simple words can become amazing, strong, and potent. People might not like what you're talking about, but if you can get them to listen, that to me changes people’s views around.

Even through my research paper in Art history, I still have to learn how to gather information by using sources more effectively by asking question or getting educated ideas to support the ones that I want to convey. The input and ideas from the feedback from my professors, and just talking and getting to know my professors has made me more confident in my work. Reading has open my mind in which I feel I need to start saying something, if no one is up to it. I'm all about the idea of having confidence, that's one of the important things Zinnser talks about towards writing. I believe that's the only way ideas can be conveyed and approached, is by knowing what you want to get done or change. This is what led me to write an e-mail to my English professors, in which I poured my thoughts on how writing changed my. Knowledge is a powerful gift, but I'm starting to realize, how you use that gift, is the key of becoming a better learner and advocate towards writing.

Still, I believe I'm starting to become more of a spectator than a reporter, more towards the idea about talking about a fact then throwing one out there on to the page and not talking deeply about it. In my reflections towards the readings, I learn to bring in more examples from my life and experiences into the readings regarding the issues talked about in the readings. I still have a problem with focusing my ideas clearly in my essays. I feel that there is some kind of pressure to get my ideas across, when I'm writing an essay. I feel that I'm being forced to kill someone, but I feel that I'm not forced into doing anything like that when I'm writing in my blog space. I came a long way to finding my self as a writer and as a person trying to find them self through writing and writing this self-reflection. I know that I’m still having trouble with structuring my sentences as well as my thoughts.


Works Cited:

-"US youth use internet to create." BBC NEWS Friday. 4 November 2005.

-Zinnser, William. "On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction." New
York. HarperCollins. 2001.
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