Good Enough

The shitty first draft is a good help to get the writing process started. Because first of all it is important that you just start to write and the shitty first draft helps you to start because you don't have to care about how good or bad your writing is because you can revise it later.
Another thing to help you writing a paper is giving up perfectionism, because most of the time papers are "good enough" when you just let it go and not try to have a perfect paper.

Living sources: Interviews and Surveys

I learned from the article "Living sources: Interviews and Surveys" was, how to find an expert to interview. The author pointed out that there are many different possibilities to find a good interviewer. For example you can use the phone book, internet, authors of your sources or friends and instructors.
When you are not finding someone to interview you can post notices on campus kiosks or bulletin boards.
The next step is to make contact to your interviewer and make clear in which form you will get information, if it is a personal interview or a telephone call or just a email response.
When you are in the interview, you have prepared your questions, but maybe you don't need to use them because the interview develops itself. Sometimes you get even more detailed or important answers. To record an interview the best way is to record it digitally.

Literature review reflection

I learned from my literature review that finding enough sources is not a big problem, but in these sources you need to find and point out the main topics which relate to your topic. It is really difficult to separate information that your review is not getting to long and includes to many different topics.

My topic needs literature review, because it is a really relevant topic and there are many sources which are already dealing with the subject. This fact shows that the topic is really important to many people in the world.  because there are already many information available, my own research has to give more details and not a totally new aspect because all aspects are shown.

My research fit within my current knowledge in the way that it gives much more details and more different views on the topic.

"The Art of Ouoting" summary

In the article "The Art of Quoting" Graff (2011) states that to "launch an effective argument you need to write the arguments of others into your text"(p.42),which means that it gives your text the best credibility when you are not only summarizing the arguments of others, but also quote them. In this process there are problems within because how the author points out "some writers quote too little"(p.42) and "at the other extreme are writers who overquote"(p.42). How you can see there are many issues writers have to take care of when they are trying to quote and support their own arguments.

"The Art of Quoting" "Distinguishing what you say from what they say"

When summarizing a text, the best way to give credibility to the summary is to quote the exact words, because quotations are like a proof of evidence. Problems with quotations are coming when writers are thinking that the meaning of the quotation is obvious and they don't need to explain their quotes. When quoting the writer needs to build a frame around them to let them speak. The amount of explanations  a quote needs depend on the complexities of the quote.

Good academic writing implies that the reader knows at every certain point of the text if you are quoting or presenting someones thoughts or developing your own opinion.

Proposal for your ethnograpic projects for social change

I will focus on the reasons why governments decide as they do because they are pushed by arm companies. The topic should be interesting for every man or woman who is able to vote because influenced politicians are not able to represent their voters. I want to find a lot of papers and articles about how decisions making in politics works. I hope to answer the question How are the government is influence and are there possibilities to change this influence.

Evaluation of Research Questions

I think the question "how are democratic governments influenced by the in industry?" raises a lot more questions as a result and this topic is really interesting me, but I am undecided between this questions and the apple question but at the moment I ll focus on this one. I can find so much information because a lot of people are interested in this field. The topic will really force me to get into the material and find out more about how politics is working.

Research questions

For our upcoming project I was looking for some topics I am really interested in. In addition there should be a lot of research material. The first topic I am thinking about is the influence of advertisements in our consume behavior. One question therefore is "How influence Apple people to buy there products? And where is the hype for Apple products coming from?"
A second topic I am really interested in is "How is a democratic government influenced by the industry and are there ways to stop the lobbyists?"
The third field is totally different to the two others, because I want to find out "Where does the pressure, that only to be number one in one sport is accepted in the society, come from?"

"Researching one in six million" and "Researching, or How I fell in love with post-it notes"

I learned from the article "Researching one in six million" that when you want to research something in depth, you have to be really interested in the topic. In addition I learned that when you start a research it may will bring you to some point where don't expect to be when you start the research. You can follow different sources and get different information and every information will lead you to another source or may end at some point in a blind alley.

From the article "Researching, or how I fell in love with post-it notes" I learned that it is very important to prepare myself before I start researching. To find a comfortable spot to work is the most important thing for me. After I am prepared for the research I need to read critically, that means not only reading the story that interests me but also poking at the book cover or the magazine in which the story is written. The third important step is to distance from the research for some time. I need some time to recover and to have a small break to be prepared for the next sessions of researching.

Linguistic Landscape project

I would like to work on political graffiti. In my opinion a political graffiti is a good way to criticize politics and your are able to go really deep into the topic. You can choose for example the actual "Wall street" problem or the US politics in the middle east. The genre is normally not really complicated constructed but without many details you can bring a lot of information and opinion. A graffiti could be displayed nearly everywhere, for example in the internet in a newspaper or just on a wall. You can combine graffiti with short messages, so your are writing short texts that are close to your topic and support your critic.

A bullet for your arsenal

In the article "A bullet for your arsenal" Susana Rodriguez is analyzing advertisements and she says that "all part of an ad" have a core function. As example she uses a Apple iPod advertisement, which not only wants the reader feel like he really needs the iPod but it makes him also feel like he is "cool","hip" or "stylish" which is a very important part in nowadays ads.
Every advertisement or movie "wants a viewer to take something away from it".

I learned from the article that images have often more explanatory power than words in advertisements, because every consumer thinks different about the picture and interprets it a little bit like he wants to interpret it. I also learned that any small part of the ad, which color is used or where is a figure placed, is exactly planned by the company to sell even more of their products.

In the first picture the reader can see a graffiti on a wall of a building. You can see two different parts, the first part there is a man wearing a red suit like the prisoners in guantanamo. The second part are just 7 words"occupy land...steal oil...the american dream". The drawer wants to criticizes the US politic because he thinks that america invented in Iraq because of the oil and not to bring the "American Dream" which means wealth and pursuit of happiness to these countries.

In the second picture you can see George Bush sitting in a wheelchair. He has a pistol directed to his head to commit suicide. The word "sorry: is drawn over his head. The author of the graffiti tries to show the people how George Bush should feel about his act when he was the president of the US. Because of his acting the economy is down and an America were losing many soldiers in Iraq. 

Both graffitis are very critical with the US government, specially the Bush administration.

Paul's Interview

Paul is born in Wisconsin but than moved to California and Florida and is now living in Illinois. So his language changed a lot of times because everytime when he changed his livingplace he speaks kind of the way the people speak where he lived that moment. And when he went on to another place he lost thi past kind of accent and used a new one. However now he is living in IL for a long time and there is nearly no accent from the other places left. His parents made the same development as he because they changed their environment too.
When Paul comes to classroom he tries to be more formal with using his language as he would do when he speaks with his friends .

critiquing and changing genres and getting personal

Different writers always make different choices and all of these choices are creative. It means that one writer will interpret the writing in one genre a little different as another writer. But it is very important that the changing or interpretation is not that big that the reader is no more able to recognize the genre.

When you write an personal essay, the writer is the only person who knows the facts and points he wants the audience to understand. So he needs to make clear what are his points and he needs to make the reader feel comfortable because you don't want to waste the readers time. In this case you can change genres to make your writing even more interesting and the reader is even more focussed on it.

my language background

At home I am speaking german because my whole family is german and they are not bilingual so there is only german. However my parents are able to speak English because of their work but it is not enough to communicate in English at home. So I learned english since the 5 grade of school. In school we learn mostly british english ant the first time I came to America I was wondering how different the pronouncation and spelling in these two differnt Englishes is. Now when I am in my room with my roommate I don't think about how I say things so there are may many mistakes because it doesn't have to be correct. But when I come to class in the college I try to speak grammatically correct english and that's really hard for me because I don't want to do any mistakes. However I try to improve my english by listening carefully and asking abut my mistakes.

From outside,in

Mellix's title "From Outside,In" reflects her steps to use official research english. She grow up just speaking black english and than her parents teach her standard english which she used when she was in a conversation with for example white people who use official english. But she still used black english when she talked to friends or with her family. Only sometimes her mother tried to teach her how to improve her english by asking her how she would say the phrase in "correct" standard english. After she was able to decide and switch between the black and the standard english depended on the situation she was in, she went to college and took a college course. There she learned about how to write papers and later on research papers. So she improved her english from "Outside,In" because at the beginning she spoke just "dirty" english but later she learned how to handle with "correct" english and so she was involved in the society. Further more she says that she "gave birth to herself" because by using and developing her english she changed the way she behaved and so herself too.

The person who influenced me the most

The person who influenced me the most is my mother. One time at christmas,when she served one more time an amazing german food I noticed that she is the most important person in my life.
She is 54 years old and in my mind the samrtest person on the planet because everytime she tries to find a solution to a problem and she works hard to reach her solution. But sometimes this even her weakness because she tries to hard and does not know when she should finish the work and rest for some hours to recover. She is working 8-10 hours a day to make sure that her children have the best future they can wish and she is happy when she can say I opend the doors for the best possible education so my children are able to live their own life without beeing depend from their parents anymore. I mean she will help them if they have problems.
Back to this situation at the christmas dinner I felt so happy about beeing part of this family because it was a feeling like there were no problems for example in school or with friends. It just was like there were only te family, the nice dinner and the celebration of the feast of love.Later on that evening my girlfriend joined the dinner and than it was a perfect time for me. The 3 most important persones in my life were sitting on one table and I just felt like flying in the sky.

Why and when we are speaking Spanish in public

Bilingual people often do not adopt English as their public language when they are together in public because "it is a matter of respect for their parents and comfort in their cultural roots".They do not want to separate from foreign people they only have respect for their language.
I think it is not a problem if bilingual people speak their language when they are together because i am german and I would prefer to speak german to my mother as well because we would change the language if there is some we are talking with who does not understand german. That's the thing she mentions in her article that you should have a closer look for the situation and than you can decide which language you speak.

The US has so many different languages and so many people from all around the world, that it is not possible to make a law which says there should be only one language. I think it is one part of american culture that they have so many people from different countries living here.

I think english is one big part to participate with american patriotism. I believe people who are really patriotism are only speaking english because otherwise you are may proud of america but you still speak your foreign language with proud because you are proud of your home country. So it is not able to compare really patriotic americans with for example spanish people who lived here for 40 years.

As I explained I am bilingual because I am german and for me it is a normal reaction that when me an my mother talking about some topic in german and one english guy joins the conversation that we will switch to a language which is understandable for every person who takes part of the conversation because it is a kind of respect that you are not alone when everyone talk about a topic and you can not understand.

The article "when and why we speak spanish in public" is powerful because the author uses a lot of example to let the reader feel like he is in the same situation so you can think about all questions in detail and not just as you were a listener.

How I read 3 different genres (textbook ,facebook,email)

When I read a textbook I focus myself on learning the subject which is presented in the textbook. In contrast to that when I read a facebook message it is all about getting to know what the person want to tell me about hisself or some activity he wants to do. I feel familiar which the facebook message because I know the person I am writing with and in a textbook it is not like a conversation it is like a lecture in class where only the teacher talks about a topic. The third genre is emailing. It is a kind of in the middle of this two because it depends on with whom you are writing. You can write with a friend like on facebook or you write with your professor and it is formal and it is sometimes only a one way conversation like in a textbook. But you have the possibility to answer to the email, so you can change the one way conversation.

Picture Exchange

Picture exchange

On the picture I choose you can see a big cathedral. It is called the "Aachener Dom". You also see some green trees and the blue sky. The whole picture means a lot for me because the "Aachener Dom" is one of the biggest and oldest cathedrals in germany. You may now think religion is really important to me, but it is not. It is the traditional and cultural history of this building which intrigue me. There is so many european history behind it that it is important to all europeans.

But that is not the main point why I choose this picture. The main point is that Aachen is my hometown. I will go there for semester breaks and I lived there for 19 years. When I see this picture right now I think about my family at home, my friends and my girlfriend and these thoughts make me strong to go forward. It was a big step in my life to leave my home country and study in the US but now I will meet new people and my life go on in a very special way. But the thoughts about my friends and my family let me believe that I will go my way and that is the main reason why I choose this image. It gives me a feeling of being safe in a country I do not really know yet. When I will come back in winter break there will be a big christmas market which is one of the most traditional markets in germany and you really get to know a lot of things about german history there. So I am very excited to come back. Meet all my friends, my girlfriend and my family. That are the reasons why I picked this image.