Class 10 THU FEB 16

Don’t know P.J. O’Rourke? Want to? Read this
Wake Up
What does music look like?
“The Allegretto” from Beethoven’s 7th Symphony:
A Note about the Process.
- The purpose of assigning a Hypothesis very early in the semester was not to put you behind or thwart your progress, it was to get the ball rolling.
- You identified a topic. It wasn’t well-defined or as sharp as it would need to be to support an academic argument, but it was SOMETHING meaningful that prompted you to begin to explore source material.
- From here, the process is cumulative and flexible. Instead of wasting your time “brainstorming” about your vague notion, you start to read in your area of interest. From here, the process is cumulative and flexible. And repetitive. Instead of wasting your time “brainstorming” about your vague notion, you start to read in your area of interest. From here, the process is cumulative and flexible. And repetitive. Instead of wasting your time “brainstorming” about your vague notion, you start to read in your area of interest.
- AS YOU GATHER AND INVESTIGATE SOURCES, your vague notion begins to crystallize. You start to have ideas, find angles, develop theories, encounter surprising details you can’t wait to share!
- You gather the best of those sources into your White Paper and cluster them around WHATEVER HAPPENS TO BE YOUR BEST WORKING HYPOTHESIS.
- As the semester continues, you do more research, abandon early ideas, refine your thinking, place new sources into conversation with old sources, and DEVELOP A THESIS YOU CAN PROVE.
- AT NO POINT IN THE PROCESS is there a place where you can get stuck thinking, “I have to solve this problem before I can continue.” Moving forward is the solution.
- You write early drafts of short arguments along the way. First a Definition/Categorical argument. Then a Causal Argument. Finally, a Rebuttal argument, all based on your developing thesis.
- Each of these arguments can be revised as many times as you wish, always for grade improvement.
- Eventually, the entire project coalesces into a single 3000-word, well-researched, carefully argued Research Position Paper that proves a single thesis.
Housekeeping
CATEGORIZE
- Agenda Notes ARE NOT posts
- They’re Replies to the Daily Agenda page.
- Please don’t use Posts to Document-Dump.
- If you’re composing “off-line,” please copy and paste your text into the post.
- You might also have to strip some formatting from your imported text.
Old Business
Late Assistance on the PTSD Claims
Sample Claims Analysis:
Consider these claims, some obvious, others hidden
When Caleb was finally screened for the severity of his TBI, Brannan says he got the second-worst score in the whole 18-county Gulf Coast VA system, which serves more than 50,000 veterans.
— “finally screened” means that according to Brannan or the author or both, Caleb should have been screened long before. It suggests that the VA was negligent in delaying his testing.
— “the severity of his TBI” clearly contains the claim that he in fact has some degree of TBI. The fact that he hadn’t until then been screened for it means nobody knew for sure that he did, but the author makes that claim.
— “Brannan says” means that the author has not independently verified Caleb’s score or where it ranked against all other screenings.
— “the second-worst score in the whole 18-county Gulf Coast VA system” is offered as Brannan’s claim that her husband is suffering more than almost anyone. Considering her vested interest in promoting this perspective, we have to be at least a little suspicious of the ranking.
— “which serves more than 50,000 veterans” gives the impression that Caleb was hurt worse than 50,000 other veterans. But let’s be clear. Many of these 50,000 will not have served in combat at all. Many will not have had active engagement with enemy troops on the battlefield. Many of those who did see active fighting will not have been near explosive devices. So we’re not comparing him to 50,000 TBI sufferers.
I’ve been very upfront about requiring you to respond to feedback, but disappointed that so few of you are taking me up on that offer (threat). Perhaps you’re not receiving Notifications when you get a Reply to your posts. Let’s spend one minute to review that process.
Early Warnings about Hypotheses
Most of us have now conferenced at least once about your hypotheses, so this little section is directed at students who haven’t conferenced or who haven’t revised their Hypotheses since conferencing. For them, I offer some warnings about common Hypothesis warning signs.
A COMMON PROFESSOR OBJECTION
Your proposal for a hypothesis is risky, MyStudent, because OVERLY POPULAR topics like the one you propose pose three very real problems:
1. WORNOUT TOPIC. The arguments about them are so completely exhausted there is very little new another paper can add to the discourse.
2. PLAGIARISM RISK. The ready availability of research papers for sale create a very tempting situation for students who feel pressured to finish something original at the end of the semester.
3. RISK OF FAILURE. More than one of my students have failed the course by borrowing heavily from papers on marijuana legalization, violent video games, an end to abortion, and the negative effects of social media on the mental health of youth.
YOUR PROFESSOR’S GO-TO ADVICE
My approach to anyone interested in these broad topics is threefold.
1. I try strenuously to guide them away from the topic toward something fresh and untrodden.
2. If that fails, I help them craft a unique perspective on the topic that avoids most of what’s already been written and researched.
3. If that fails, I demand very strong, very early, and well-documented evidence of original research before the halfway point of the semester. Students who show they’re doing their own work before the end of the semester mitigate the appearance that they might be trying to copy their way to a finished product.
4. If those steps fail, so too, usually, does the student.
New Business
Linking to Sources
If you’ve tried to import links into your posts to guide readers to a source, you may have noticed they can be super-long and clumsy, like this:
URL BEFORE BITLY
Help is available from any number of free link-shortening sites such as bit.ly and 3.ly.
URL AFTER BITLY
- Navigate to any website with a long url.
- Copy the url onto your clipboard. OR copy the super-long url from the block above.
- (Ctrl+C, or ⌘+C, or right-click plus Copy function)
- Navigate to a link-shortening site.
- bit.ly or 3.ly or tinyurl.com
- bit.ly requires a free account
- 3.ly and tinyurl.com will permit immediate shortening without an account
- Paste your long url link into the provided url field.
- Choose the “shorten link” command (language may vary).
My tinyurl results: https://tinyurl.com/67chfcwb
My 3ly results: https://3.ly/afntH
My bitly results: https://bit.ly/34NFhep
Protocol/Mechanics
- The Recent Comments section of the sidebar should look representative of the most interactive members of the class. Success in this course means engaging in the recursive process of writing (incorporating the ideas of others, synthesizing them with your own, sharing the results with the World Laboratory of Ideas, and suffering—I mean celebrating—the reactions of others, incorporating those new ideas, and so on).

- This sort of conversation should be happening in the feedback cycles for your White Paper.
- When it does, your avatar will find a regular spot in the “Recent Comments” section of the blog, where it belongs as often as possible.
- Do not wait for your Professor to initiate these dialogues.
- However, in many cases, your Professor has already initiated these dialogues and is impatiently awaiting your engagement.
- When you feel lost, need clarification, want to bounce a new idea off of someone, need help finding a source (or knowing what terms to search for), drop a comment on your White Paper or on whichever of your posts is most appropriate.
Lecture/Demo
Research Tips
I can’t find any sources!

Good Notes, CN
3/3
LikeLike
Good Notes, Ziggy
3/3
LikeLike
We started class David reminding us to start working on our first draft so that we aren’t playing catch up later on. He made sure to tell us that our daily class notes belong on the agenda and not its own post. We looked over a student’s ptsd claims to analyze how many claims can be in just a sentence and make sure you pay enough attention to how you’re using your words and why. David continued class by showing us how to make a link into a hyperlink without using up so much space. The remaining portion of the class was spent showing us a process of naturally coming to a different hypothesis that you are able to find research to support.
LikeLike
Quote of the day: P.J. O’rourke-have an argument with and enjoy it
The Process: should be starting on a first draft/ should be synthesizing with other people’s ideas and creating a lot of purposeful summaries. 15 sources probably only need to use 7 or 8 sources. short arguments can be redone and regraded as much as we would like.
We should use articles that go against our topics to debunk them or prove why they are incorrect
There are a lot more claims than we think in just a sentence; words can just be a claim ex: Finally
The rewriting course is for changing our first draft instead of accepting our first draft
Ways to fail- copy and pasting, plagiarism, waiting till the last minute
Linking to sources- can change the link to the title of the article 3.ly and bit.ly are link-shortening sites
Should be chatting with professors all the time to help update our writing and help get useless ideas out of our writing
Finding sources can be tricky and change the way we search and what we are searching for/ if we are still stumped our great professor will assist us in his own ways
Campbell library online has many sources if we can’t use them online.
LikeLike
Feb 16 Comp Notes
We began class listening to Allegretto by Beethoven.
We then spoke about the quote “It’s better to spend money like there’s no tomorrow than spend tonight like there’s no money.” We discussed the likes of the quote, who wrote it, as well as the concept of it.
We then started talking about the process of the rest of the things we are going to do for the rest of the semester.
We then went into PTSD claims along with examples to get a better understanding of what making a claim is. There was a sentence used “when Caleb was finally screened for the severity of his TBI, Brannam says he got the second worst score in the whole 18-county Gulf Coast VA system, which serves more than 50,000 veterans” with this sentence we looked for claims in them. “Finally,”, is making a claim in this sentence. We further dissected other claims found within the example sentences, elaborating on what makes it a claim.
We then spoke about some issues with the hypothesis. Giving us a clear understanding of what is looked for and anything that anyone might be struggling with.
Towards the end of class, we went over the protocol of submitting work specifically notes as well as how to interact with the professor on your post getting feedback as necessary.
We went over how to make meetings with people at the writing center if help is needed for work or papers.
We were giving the topic of the gay community. We spoke about a cause the gay community was displaying, but they did not have enough claims to get the support of their cause. A conversation was given as a solution, we were asked why along with examples to further dive into the real reasons of the side we are on with things (mainly writing). We went over ways to find different resources, the proper ones to use can be found on the library website. showing how to plug sources into your writing.
LikeLike
Today, we first listened to classical music which was very calming and soft. Then we discussed that our hypothesis is a long term assignment and the first draft should be in process once we have enough evidence to work with. Im excited to write this because I strongly believe that my hypothesis is true and I relate to it so much. I also realized that me not finding many sources for my research is totally okay because then that means there isn’t many people who have thought about it. I was honestly stressed out just trying to find five sources. The purpose of this assignment is to convince them to believe me.
We then talked about the PTSD claims assignment and that their could be more than one claim in one sentence. I believed that some may have another claim but I wasn’t sure. I now have to revise my work and thoroughly make sure each sentence is defined with it’s claims. We looked at an example of this and assigned claims to it, as a class, this gave me a better understanding about all the claims.
Professor Hodges then showed us how to link properly on our posts. I didn’t know how to link sources the way we we were showed today, i’ve always done it differently but it still ends up being a short link. We were also directed to get help at the writing center, if we’d like. I was required to go and get help from a tutor. last semester because of the course I was taking. It helped a lot and made me a better writer, I can spot out some of my mistakes now but another set of eyes will always be helpful. Others can see what you can’t and another’s opinion might even make your essay better.
LikeLike
Quote: “It’s better to spend money like there’s no tomorrow than to spend tonight like there’s no money.” P.j. O’Rourke
We begin class by discussing how we can start our first draft by reviewing our sources and finalizing our hypothesis. By the end of the semester we will have 15 sources and by adding sources to the white paper we will develop our hypothesis. In order to prove our hypothesis we should look at sources that go against what we say and prove that they are incorrect. After going over this we discuss our PTSD claims assignment. We look at an example of a text and find all the claims in the text. I definitely need to work on figuring out which claim is which and just understanding how to find them and what to look for. When writing claims, our word choice is very important to consider in order to clearly state what exactly you’re claiming. After going over claims the professor shows us how to put our links with the corresponding titles to make formatting easier.
LikeLike
White Paper: 15-20 sources are required throughout the semester for the final 3000-word Paper. Form organized sections based on the arguments they make. Don’t shy away from arguments you can’t find sources for. You have found a new unexplored argument; Embrace it.
-Shy away from WORNOUT claims for research. Make your hypothesis as unique as possible, and explore a NEW idea.
“I can’t find any sources!” – Go at supporting your hypothesis from an angle that you CAN research and you CAN prove, that is unique.
LikeLike
The notetaking process should be gathering sources, not brainstorming. Brainstorming is a waste of time. It’s okay to be stumped with not finding sources, that means nobody has thought about the same hypothesis that you have. You need to take a position on this research paper. It’s a 3,000-word position paper, make them change their mind.
Agenda notes are not where you should submit your posts, please make sure you don’t add your “posts” to your agenda. It confuses the professor.
PTSD claims, there are more claims than you think there are.
In the sample claim analysis, “finally screened” is making an ethical claim. Caleb deserved better. the severity of his TBI is a comparative claim. There are a lot of claims you can make within 1 – 2 sentences.
For your hypothesis, if you haven’t revised it, do not choose a worn-out topic. There’s a huge plagiarism risk so do not buy a research paper just because you’re pressured to finish something original. The risk of failure is big for students, don’t be scared to do a hard topic. The professor gives good advice, he is here to help you to succeed, don’t be scared to ask for help on your topic.
To add links to your posts, make sure to write the title of the source you’re using, and then link the URL to the title of the link. Make sure to click “open in a new tab” so it doesn’t take you away from your post. A website called bitly will help shorten your links.
The righthand sidebar should look like you are having a conversation with the professor.
A link to the writing center was provided by the professor. There are times and ways to meet with different writer center helpers. There are also little descriptions of the tutors.
Sometimes you have to think a little outside the box with your hypothesis to have sources that help back up your hypothesis. If a source is behind a paywall, the rowan library is your way to go.
LikeLike
Notes:
-There are more claims in every sentence than we realize. For example, “let’s” is a claim. Claims are all around us, and we do not even realize.
-Use words carefully. If a word like finally is not needed to be extreme do not use it.
-Just because someone states that they said something, it does not mean it is true
-The Essay at the end should write itself using three previous revised assignments
-We can use bit.ly to shorten our urls.
-If not happy or we want more help, we can go to the Rowan writing center for extra help
-Use one idea to lead to the next idea
LikeLike
Todays class began with some nice classical music to get our mornings going. Then we talked about how vague certain claims can be. In a five word sentence, there may be five different claims. This was really helpful for me to learn because I was looking at more of a bigger picture. We also went into what makes a hypothesis good and which ones are overdone. We also were taught the important skill of shortening links. We were then shown a shortcut to the writing clinic website and how to navigate it. We finished with a discussion about how usually when people complain about not being able to find enough sources, they are not looking hard enough. If you are stuck in one spot and can not possibly find anymore sources, maybe compare your hypothesis with something very similar, and continue to research that instead.
LikeLike
– Went over the note process and discussed why we started the hypothesis / so early into the semester.
– We need to have 15 sources in our white paper and site 7-10 in the article.
– We can have as many rewrites as we want as long as Professor David has the patience for it (almost never-ending patience)
– To find more sources, find articles that are against your hypothesis, pick out things in their article that prove them wrong.
– There are way more claims in a sentence than you think there are!
– “Finally,” would be the first claim in the first sample claim analysis.
– “For the severity of his TBI” would be an example of a comparison claim since you are comparing better and worse cases.
– BITLY: a url shortener. Need free account to access!
– Discussed the writing center and how we can use it to our advantage. They are peer review tutors that can help us with drafts, essays, sources, etc.
– We look at a student’s Westboro Baptist Church research and feedback from that post so we can insight on what we are expected to do.
LikeLike
Quote of the day means live life and don’t be hesitant.
Need to change people’s minds when they read your white paper.
and also needs 15 sources on your 3,000-word page.
We talked about different PTSD claims.
LikeLike
-Learn to appreciate all things
-The whole point of summarizing is to synthesize ideas into your own thinking
-Need 15-20 sources, 7-10 sources on final 3000 word paper
-No sources? this means that you have broken new ground
-Keep asking for feedback
-Definition/Categorical argument, causal argument, rebuttal argument
-Prove a single thesis at the end of the paper
-Think smarter, do better
-There are far more claims in a sentence than meets the eye
-“Let’s Harvest” is already two claims
-Every word can be a claim
-Talk to the prof if you are having trouble finding sources or if you need a new topic because you’ve found too many
-Look deep into your topic to find new avenues to find sources
LikeLike
Class began with a quote by one of the creative minds behind national lampoon. Much like the national lampoon, I am making a fool out of someone, myself, because I exited out of the wordpress page and lost all my progress on the class notes.
The PTSD claims section covered the professor’s disappointment with the relatively shallow observations in many submissions. To illustrate all the claims in a sentence that the student’s were overlooking, the professor spent nearly half an hour examining the claims in a sentence.
The Hypothesis section restated that the research should lead us to a stronger hypothesis. If we cannot prove our hypothesis as much as we would like, then it is more appropriate to look towards what the sources are telling us that is easier to prove.
Finally, the professor preached against unoriginal theses for the research project. He feels strongly that an argument is not worth pursuing if it has already been proven. Perhaps its my background primarily in historical writing, but I find significant value in re-examining ideas that have already been covered. However, this is not to say that there are no new ideas in historical writing — quite the contrary! Novel new perspectives are always cropping up in research on the past, and are absolutely necessary.
LikeLike
Notes 2/16:
-“It’s better to spend money like there’s no tomorrow than to spend to tonight like there’s no money” – PJ O’Rourke
– Hypotheses: We were told to come up with a hypothesis almost immediately when class started. This was to get the ball rolling on our white paper which is our cumulative assignment for the semester made up of multiple small essays and arguments (Definition/Categorical, Causal, Rebuttal) creating a thesis out of our hypothesis. These essays can be revised for grade improvement and they’ll eventually make up the 3000 word paper due.
– Make sure not to “document dump” into the blog when you post. Also try and make sure font, text size, and other formatting are correct in blog posts.
-Warnings for a Hypothesis: Worn-out topic- some topics have too much written about them and there’s nothing new to bring to the table; Plagiarism Risk- choosing something popular can entice students to plagiarize because several people have already posted papers regarding the topic; Risk of failure- borrowing material from other papers with popular controversial topics can lead to failure.
-Professor Advice on broad topics: Try to guide students into a different topic, try to guide students into a new window of the topic, guide students into making their own original research
-Make sure to shorten extremely long links using bitly, tiny url, or the control k feature we have in our particular blog.
-Protocol/Mechanics: By actively commenting and responding to feedback, it will make you far more successful in this course because you will be able to make stronger drafts due to more information and knowledge from having conversations with others.
-Research Tips: If you can’t find any sources that support your argument or say what you’re saying, that’s actually good. You want to find sources that talk about similar content that your hypothesis is about and maybe some similar agreements and if you can’t find those, even better. Because now you’re able to use sources that counter your argument and totally build your own argument and position against what you’re sourcing.
LikeLike
The Process:
Purpose of getting an early hypothesis was to get the ball rolling
Finding a broad topic that can be further researched and explored
Find areas of that topic that interest you
Vague ideas start to “crystallize”
Housekeeping:
Agenda notes are supposed to be replies not an entire post
Also do not post documents that are to be downloaded on the blog
Respond to feedback
Sample PTSD Claim:
First claim: Finally Screened
Should have been screened before→ Ethical Claim
“Brannan says” → Factual Claim
Does not have to be true to be a factual claim
Hypothesis→ Three Real Problems
Worn Out topic, plagiarism, and Risk of Failure
Having trouble finding sources
Research opposite of topic for information
You do not want to find something you are trying to prove because then it is already proven
Looking to find ideas that have not been brought up yet
Rowan Library or Google Scholar for research only
If Google scholar costs money to download the full article, the Campbell Library will most likely have the article you are looking for.
LikeLike
Bethoven music: Sometimes you got to look at all the details to see how things are displayed/formatted.
Be sure to give yourself time to work on your hypothesis and gather sources for your paper early in the semester so you are not rushing at the end of the semester. It is also important to work on your hypothesis so that no one has the same hypothesis as you and to ensure that it is arguable when writing. BE WARNED OF THESE THREE THINGS: “wornout topic,” “plagiarism risk,” and “borrowing heavily from papers.” Stay away from broad topics.
We have second conferences coming up next week.
Be sure to post your notes in the reply section of the blog. Also be sure to not drop documents of your work when posting to the blog. Actually write on the blog and publish it so that your work is easily accessible.
PTSD Claims: When writing, be attentive to the words you use when making your claims. Do not use useless words in your writing because that will take the reader’s attention away from the claims you are trying to make.
When asking for feedback, be specific in what you want to discuss.
Start up conversations with your professor so that the sidebar is full of your conversations. Bottom line is stay connected with your professor.
The Writing Center is here for your utilization and help. If you ever need help with your white paper or papers in this class, go to the Writing Center.
Research tips: Do not look for sources that necessarily agree with your hypothesis/standpoint. Find sources that add something new to the conversation and argue with your point. It will make your paper more interesting.
LikeLike
We began class listening to Beethoven.
Hypothesis is a long term essay and the first draft should be in process.
Second conference deadline coming up February 23. Schedule an appointment before that day!
Housekeeping- notes are not posts, they are a daily reply. Don’t use posts to do a document dump.
PTSD Claims- It is valuable to see how much persuasion is going on in one sentence. You need to not throw in distracting words if they aren’t important to your claim. The less you distract your readers with claims that have nothing to do with your argument, the more they’ll be focused. “Finally screened” would be an ethical claim because he should’ve been screened a long time ago.
Request feedback and respond to it.
Early warnings about hypothesis- you want to be extraordinary, don’t have an overwhelming tempting hypothesis that is overused and can have plagiarism.
You can find everything on google scholar.
LikeLike
– We listened to classical music, to show us to the appreciate the small and detailed things in life
– Make sure your notes are replies and not posts
– Make sure your Hypothesis is strong enough so you have somewhere to start, also have 15-20 sources, then you are able to start writing your 3000 word essay, Definition/Categorical, Causal, Rebuttal Argument.
– Went over the PTSD claims, stating that there are multiple claims in one sentence.
– Factual Claims don’t have to be true
– Make sure you leave a reply or comment under Feedback Please to get the top of the list.
– Second Hypothesis Conference February 23rd
– Schedule an appointment
– Make your topic unique to avoid the risk of plagiarism.
– To hide the URL, copy address, click edit, then click link url from the text, lastly click open with new tab.
– Upload an image for your profile picture
– If you can’t find sources make sure you use the right words to get a better selection of sources
– When looking for resources, you can always look at the websites that once sources uses to get more information
LikeLike
NOTE ABOUT THE PROCESS
Make sure your hypothesis is still working for you
Make sure it’s still flexible and you can move from one source to another
Eventually your hypothesis becomes a thesis
1000 word categorical argument
A causal argument
A rebuttal argument
HOUSEKEEPING
Make appointment to meet
Notes are NOT posts they are replies to the daily agenda
Don’t post a link as a comment
Open code editor to match blog format
OLD BUSINESS
Late assistance on the PTSD claims
The less you distract your readers with claims that don’t support your argument the better the argument
Sample Claims Analysis:
“finally screened”: ethical claim
“serves more than 50,000 veterans”: numerical claim
“Brannan says”: attributive claim
“second-worst score”: comparative claim
*Numerical factual claims need to be better investigated as a reader because you could be using that information wrong when quoting
*RESPOND TO FEEDBACK
EARLY WARNINGS ABOUT HYPOTHESES
A common objection to hypothesis
– overly used (find something that is not common knowledge)
– there becomes a plagiarism risk when using common topics (avoid the opportunity)
YOUR PROFESSOR’S GO-TO ADVICE
Guide you away from those topics
If that fails, the professor will help you create a unique perspective.
*make sure you know how to hide links behind text and shorten links
Go to TinyURL
PROTOCOL/ MECHANICS
conversation should be happening in the feedback
Don’t have to wait for your Professor
WRITING CENTER
If you would like extra feed back or a different view
Link provided
Have to create an account
Chart with times provided
RESEARCH TIPS
Using sources with the opposite point of view may be very helpful
You want to find something with enough evidence but hasn’t been proved yet
You want to be able to add something new to the topic
Looking for direct testimony for your hypothesis may not be beneficial at all
*if you want an article that makes you pay for it you should go to Rowan Campbell library website to access for “free”.
LikeLike
– The hypothesis was assigned really early so that we had time to decide if the hypothesis we chose would work for us.
– You will need to write three arguments which are a definition/categorical, casual and a rebuttal
– Each argument can be revised as many times as needed
– “When Caleb was finally screened…” This is an ethical claim because something should have been done about it earlier.
– “Brennan Says…” This is a factual claim that the author does not want to take responsibility for. Not wanting to take responsibility for it also makes it an attributive claim.
– Early warnings for hypothesis:
– Worn-out topic: the argument you chose is completely exhausted and your paper will be mediocre.
– Plagiarism risk: If the topic is worn out there are probably a lot of research papers for sale which could be tempting to some.
– Risk of Failure: You can end up failing if you use a lot of evidence from articles.
– To shorten links, you can use websites such as Bitly or tinyurl
– You can hide links behind the title so that you don’t need to have the whole link. (Do this for the blog)
– Feel free to have a conversation with your professor when doing feedback
– Use the writing center for extra feedback
– Do not think, do not brainstorm instead have a conversation about it. You will easily come up with new ideas by just talking it over with someone you will get nowhere just thinking about it endlessly.
– If you end up having to pay for an article, go to the library resources because your tuition pays for it.
LikeLike
-When you have enough evidence about your hypothesis is when you have a thesis
-If you’re composing offline copy and paste your text into the post
-The less you distract your reader with words that don’t have to do with your argument the more your reader has to think about what your argument is
-“Should” or “should have been” is an ethical claim
-A factual claim doesn’t have to be true
-A warn out topic is when the arguments are so exhausted there are already 1000 other papers about it
-It can be tempting to use another persons paper, but don’t
-Students have failed before by borrowing heavily from other papers
-Professor will try to guide away from a broad topic
^Help craft a new unique perspective of the topic
^Demand strong, early and well documented pieces of evidence of original research
-To hide a link behind something, copy the link address, select whatever you want to hide it behind, then paste the link
-Your avatar should be in the “recent comments” section of the blog, do this by having conversations with the professor
-Go to the Rowan library website to find articles that you have to pay for elsewhere
LikeLike
We started off class today by listening to classical music. We watched a video showing us how the music looks, showing each note played by each instrument. The more we see how different instrument take part in producing the beautiful music, the more we appreciate the music.
Claims:
There are many different types of claims. Some examples taken from PTSD Claims are as follows:
– FINALLY screened
– 50,000 veterans (numerical claim)
– SHOULD have been screened (ethical claim)
– SECOND-WORST score (comparative claim)
– BRANNAN SAYS (factual claim)
We were manipulated into thinking that Caleb had the second worst score for the severity of his TBI out of his 50,000 veterans who suffered from TBI, but that is not true. It was 50,000 veterans who served… ever. And that is not even close to the number of veterans who suffer from TBI. It would be more accurate to say “second worst out of 500 (maybe)” because that is more likely the amount of people who were in Afghanistan, in the action, and close enough to bombs to get a TBI.
Three real problems:
-worn out topic
-plagiarism risk – stay away from the temptation of plagiarism!!! It is easy to spot.
-risk of failure – by borrowing heavily from common research topic papers.
Long URLs make your paper messy
We learned how to link a URL to a word/short sentence
If you want to use the writing center, you must set up an account and it will take you to the schedule of times that are available to meet with different people.
It is better to make an appointment with someone early on in the semester to get to know them so that by the end of the semester when they are very busy, they are more likely to meet with YOU!
Don’t brainstorm about your thesis… TALK ABOUT IT
Find articles on google scholar, but if you need to pay, go to the Campbell Library and search the title of the article!
LikeLike
– As you go through the weeks we need to do reading and find sources that will help support our hypothesis and make it more specific
– That’s when a hypothesis becomes a thesis
– Most sentences have so many claims without realizing they are there
– Depending on the context it can also be more than one different claims
– The writing center can be useful in order to improve writing
– You don’t want to find any sources that prove your exact hypothesis
– You should use ones that don’t so that you can develop yours and people wanna read what you wrote
– Your hypothesis should add something new to the hypothesis
– You can find anything you are looking for on google scholar
LikeLike
-We started by going over some claims in the ptsd task and analyzing them.
-We went through a sentence and found every claim and went over why they are that claim and how to find the claims.
-We then went over talking about our hypothesis’ and how picking the right hypothesis is very crucial to how well our argument or paper will turn out.
-We then talked about finding sources for your hypothesis and that you are not always looking for exactly what your hypothesis is but looking for sources that go against it so you can create an argument.
-You can find articles on the rowan university library website. For some articles on google you may need to pay but you can find them on the libraries page sometimes for free.
LikeLike
The animated video with classical music was very nice.
Going over the process of the paper.
Seeing the different PTSD claims from the reading.
Making sure that the hypothesis we pick can actually be used and won’t get us expelled.
Learning how to link our sources and how to get a smaller url.
Talking about how to get a good hypothesis. Finding new ideas and finding sources for something people haven’t thought about before.
LikeLike
“It’s better to spend money like there’s no tomorrow than to spend tonight like there’s no money.” -P.J. O’Rourke
A note about the process:
We were assigned a hypothesis in the beginning of the semester to start getting our processes started. Once we start to gather and discover sources, our thoughts that started off as “vague” begin to come together as more of an argument that is ready to be put out there. Our hypothesis soon becomes a thesis that we can prove. This argument can be revised as many times as we need for grade improvement. This entire project will conjoin into one, 3000 word (1000 word definition/categorical argument, 1000 word casual argument, 1000 word rebuttal argument) research paper that proves our thesis.
Housekeeping:
-CATEGORIZE-
Our agenda notes are not supposed to be posts, they are replies to each daily agenda page.
When posting assignments, do not document-dump. It’s best if you were to copy and paste your text into the post before uploading to the blog.
Early Warnings About Hypotheses:
A common objection to a hypothesis proposal would be due to the fact it is overly popular. Wornout topics, plagiarism risk, and the risk of failure are three very common problems that can arise if you were to have a hypothesis that is overly popular.
-Professor’s Go-To Advice-
He will try to guide us away from the topic
He will help us create a unique perspective on the topic that avoids those that have already been written
~The Writing Center is available for us to utilize if we needed to.
We can sign up for appointments online ~
Research tips
*Talk* about your thesis until you begin to raise questions that can be researched. Don’t think or brainstorm about it.
Listen carefully for topics that are not immediately named in your thesis
There are many useful articles found on Google Scholar…however not all of them are free to utilize.
—The Rowan University Campbell Library Database has access to the articles that we cannot access on Google Scholar (available from the cost of our tuition)—
Read about the value of celebrity endorsement (positive and negative)
We should learn about “our tendency to dissociate ourselves from unsavory characters”
Apply this evidence to our thesis.
LikeLike
When creating your draft you want to make sure that you are original, you should not be getting plenty of results for resources. The fewer results you find the better the hypothesis is, this means that no one has thought of the hypothesis you made or taken the chance to make a paper on it. When asking for help you should give feedback to your feedback, and make the conversation seem as if you are discussing face to face, you don’t want it to be one-sided where the conversation is like talking to a brick wall. there are resources to make the links to websites smaller, this makes the resource presentable and not jumbo-packed with codings/letters. The writing centre provides help if you feel like the help you received was not making sense, or if you want someone to help you better your writing. Remain original, don’t plagiarize and don’t restate everything that was said in your resource for that would make it seem like a summary and not a hypothesis being tested.
LikeLike
In the beginning of the semester, we were told to come up with a hypothesis. This was a start so that we could get moving on the process. This process is flexible. Start to read more about what we are interested in, no need to think. We are to progressively build on our idea and gather more information and sources on our topic that we will be researching over the semester. We need to find sources to support our claim. We should come up with something unique and stray away from broad, well-known topics, be creative and think outside the box. Develop a thesis that we can prove.
We are to make revisions and changes along the way.
We have our second conference in about a week to talk to our professor about our progress on our hypothesis.
Our notes are not posts, they are daily replies to the agenda page, so DO NOT post them as a blog post.
Do not use posts to document dump because this makes it more complicated for the professor to access.
We all should ask for feedback on our work and could say something like, “What is my biggest problem?” This is so that the professor can help and guide us in the right direction to improve our work. It is best to leave replies and have a conversation with the professor about feedback so we know what we potentially did wrong and how we can improve.
An objection to our hypothesis would be because it is overly popular. We do not want to be mediocre, we want to be extraordinary. Avoiding opportunity is a way to stay blameless.
DO NOT PLAGIARIZE. Professor Hodges will know!
Post our short arguments on time. (there are 3 of them, 1,000 words each, then our final paper will consist of 3,000 words)
We can use the writing center for any help!
Research tips – we want to find enough evidence to prove something that has not been proved yet, do not go searching for something that you are already looking for.
We can also utilize the Rowan University Library website to plug in any source or article that we are trying to find, for free, if we could not access it another way.
LikeLike
A Note of Process: We start a hypothesis early because we start to build a notion to a create hypothesis that then becomes a thesis. Your hypothesis isn’t well defined yet but you have something meaningful to start researching. You can then begin to research things that interest you that are related to your hypothesis. As you gather information, your idea will start to be more defined and start to find different angles that you might want to approach. Once you gather your best sources, you can be to lay them out in your white paper and continue your progress there. You are working towards a clear thesis that you can prove. Along the way, you will write a definition or categorical argument, a causal argument, and a rebuttal argument in order to develop your thesis. Lastly forming all of this into a 3000-word essay.
Housekeeping
– Don’t post Agenda Notes, reply to them.
– Don’t post an untitled document or document dumps
Early Warnings about Hypotheses:
– Don’t choose a worn-out topic because it could possibly lead to plagiarism risk and a risk of failure.
New Business: When linking sources try not to have them be long written links, instead try to shorten them
Research tips: When doing your research and you get stuck, discuss it with your professor. You might need to look at it from a different angle or perhaps you are researching it in the wrong places. It helps talking it out with someone.
LikeLike
– Hypothesis- we started our hypothesis early so that we could brainstorm but now its time to start looking deeper into our hypothesis and look into ideas that may make an even better thesis while researching. As the semester goes on you should continue to work towards a good thesis, refine your work and don’t just settle for the hypothesis you first came up wit, Dig deep.
– These agenda notes are not posts so you should be scrolling down each agenda page to leave your notes
-Claims assistance- By looking over this one sentence Brocken down into claims we see that just one word or 2 can be a claim and that these few words have such a bigger meaning then the word itself.
-Hypothesis warnings- as we move into our second conferences we should be working away from a plausible idea to a more abstract theory, failure to do so may result in a Failing grade.
– Link Shortening- Your links should not be long urls but instead renamed to fit your research better, we had a in person demo don’t by professor but if you go to agenda 16, under new business is a Bitly url to help you shorten your links
– You should be having ongoing conversations and revisions on your work, as professor gives back feedback you should be revising his comments and asking for more to help you get the best outcome possible
– On Agenda 16 there is also the Link to the writing center and the tutors available to help you with your writing at anytime, this is an incredible resources to use
– Can’t find Sources?- click on the can’t find sources link on agenda 16 to help give you advice on finding sources. One way is to talk out loud about your topic until you raise possible questions to research
LikeLike
– Lecture began with Beethoven music playing. This was a reminder to value the details and little moments in order to better see how things are presented and structured.
– Give yourself time to work on your hypothesis and gather sources. Maintain good time management consistently throughout the semester to prevent procrastination and last minute cramming.
– Avoid a worn out topic, never plagiarize, and don’t write about a broad subject
– Pay attention to the wording of your claims and avoid extra words that lack contribution in order to keep the reader’s focus on the claim
– Be specific when asking the professor for feedback and stay in communication with your professor
– Utilize the writing center
-Do not look for sources that necessarily agree with your hypothesis/standpoint.
-Find sources that add something new to the conversation and argue with your point.
LikeLike
We looked at another sentence and looked at the different claims in one sentence. Even in the first few words “When Caleb was finally screened” is an evaluative claim or moral claim as it says he “finally” got screened, implying that he should’ve been screened earlier or that he had to wait way too long. There were many claims in the one sentence between words, and it’s important to know about these claims so that when I write, I can be much more clear with my words. We also discussed some potential problems with a worn out topic that has been written about many times already, as there could be plagiarism by borrowing from other papers.
We looked at ways to make your White Paper look better, by linking a URL of your article to the title, rather than having a super long URL, or using bitly to make the URL much shorter. We also looked at the Rowan Writing Center which can help you with finding meetings to get feedback on your writing. You can also use the Rowan library online to find articles that you would have to pay for, for free.
We also looked at how a topic can lead to other research rather than just researching the same thing because you may just end up getting the same results over and over again. If you keep broadening your research, it will be easier to find a hypothesis and topic that has not been done before.
LikeLike