Introduction & 1st Readings

Introduction:

I am a fourth year MSU student and a second year Writing major/Psychology minor. I don’t know yet what I want to do with my major, but I know what I’m interested in and for now I’m going to just listen to my heart and see where it takes me. So far I’ve enjoyed everything the writing major has come my way, but I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to go into journalism, magazine or newspaper writing (I haven’t had WRIT 373, but I’m not sure if that class could change my mind – or maybe it could… I guess I’ll talk with my advisor). I apologize to those that enjoy it, but it is not a type of writing. For a very long time now I’ve loved creative writing (more for story writing than poetry though, but I enjoy writing both) and I’m so happy that I finally got into the Creative Writing section this time around. I also enjoy nonfiction writing. I’ve been exploring rhetoric in my spare time and I love the connections and insights that I’m gaining with regards to it. I haven’t taken the rhetoric history/theory class yet, but I look forward to it when I take it next fall. In general I love learning. I love discovering new things. I love exploring (mentally & physically). I love asking questions. I love trying to figure out answers to things that I don’t know the answers to. I love thinking.

Koeppel:

The beginning of this article reminded me of creative nonfiction and then it slowly became an engaging narrative that reminded me of something I had read in former science classes’s textbooks such as BIOB 100 or ASTR 110. One piece of information that caught my attention and that I was thought interesting was that the smaller a person’s frame, the less damage they are likely to take on from a fall of such great heights. I’m quite short/small and so I guess this is another reason to embrace my petite-ness… :). (But here’s to hoping that I won’t need it)

Levi:

I found the narrator to be quite personable in the beginning, but then toward the end I lost interest in the article … I enjoyed some of the information presented though, but the writing style felt dry to me.

Lightman:

You know.. One thing that I forgot to mention that I thought about as I read this final piece was that all three of these are not written in APA format. They offer information yes, but they don’t cite the information within their pages. It feels informal in a way to me. Right now I’m taking Psyx 225 (Research Design & Analysis II) and for that class I will be reading psychological research papers in APA format and then I have to write my own research paper as my final paper. I had to cite psychological information in Psyx 223 (Research Design & Analysis I) in APA format after making calculations with SPSS on a campus computer. The information I had to cite was intertwined with my procedures, hypotheses (null & alternative) and other straight forward information that was related my experiment. To be honest, there was a moment when I thought this class would focus on how research writers write in the scientific field. I’m glad that isn’t the case – I like science but I wouldn’t enjoy reading those types of articles (I apologize to those that do – I’m sorry if that was rude). I like writing my psychological papers, but… it’s not my favorite. :)

Side note: I’d like to add that on page 149 when it discussed our nearest galaxies, I immediately remembered one piece of information I learned in ASTR 110 my sophomore year at MSU while I was undeclared: Our galaxy is on a collision course with Andromeda, but no one alive today will experience that event. It’ll happen in about 4 billion years or so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4disyKG7XtU

Overall I enjoyed this portion of the reading because it made me remember all the interesting "facts" I learned in ASTR 110. For example, all the gas planets like Neptune and Jupiter have rings, and the closer a planet is to the sun, the more solid they become.

Well, I guess I’ll stop before I write a novel… :).