Reflection

Overall, I was very pleased with the class. I was nervous going into it because I had never taken an online course before, but once I figured out how to do everything, I enjoyed it very much. The parts of the course that were successful for me were the lectures, the readings, and the blogs. One part that was unsuccessful for me was the discussion board because I felt like there should be more discussion.

I learned many things this semester about writing essays. One major thing I learned was how to do a counterargument and rebuttal. I also learned how to add more audience appeal throughout the essay and how to make the introduction more interesting.

I feel that this course has met most of my expectations. I feel that I have improved my writing overall, have learned to organize my ideas in a successful way, and I have improved on stating my ideas clearly throughout the essay. Overall, I am happy with the class!

Evaluating Criteria

Evaluating criteria is very important in everyday life. It helps us make educated decisions, whether it be life changing decisions or a simple everyday decisions. If we did not evaluate criteria, we would end up doing a lot of things we would regret or did not want to do because we did not think it through before doing it.

I evaluated criteria when I had to make a decision on whether I should try out for the BGSU softball team. The criteria that I evaluated was 1.) Will the school offer support if I am struggling in my studies while playing softball? 2.) Will the team accept a player who has a temporary injury (since I had an injury at the time) ? and 3.) How do the players handle their school work when they are on the road? I also had to evaluate my own personal thoughts and decide whether I loved the sport enough to put that much time and commitment into it. If I did not evaluate all of this criteria, I would have made an uninformed choice and may have chose the wrong thing.

TV Show!

If I were to make a tv show about essay 4 it would be a reality show. I would have a group of 10 people and observe them doing different things, such as playing violent video games. Then there would be a video camera where they could just go and talk to about why they did certain things. Then we could see all the causes of why people do certain things and determine the most plausible causes.

Speculating Causes

I think speculating causes for certain things is very important. It helps us understand why something happens and lets us look at all the possible causes. If you just look at just one cause or the most obvious cause for a certain trend or event, you are limiting yourself to fully understanding why that certain trend or event occurred. Also, it is not good to assume that the most obvious cause for something happening is the only cause and the most accurate. It might not be a cause at all and then you would have completely misinterpreted the whole trend or event.

Speculating causes in the "real world" can be very useful because people can come up with solutions to disastrous events. For example, if there was a school shooting, officials would want to come up with all the possible causes for why the shooting occurred. They might come up with that the shooter played too many violent video games, had a grudge against a certain student, or was mentally unstable. If officials can come up with possible causes, they might be able to come up with solutions to prevent the next shooting.

Popular trends that you go....HMMMMM!

A popular trend that makes hmmm....is video games...especially violent video games such as the Halo series and the newly released Halo 3 video game. I always wondered what the fascination with these video games were. I really do not know why these games are so popular, however I would like to do some research as to why these violent video games are so popular among wide variety of people and age groups.

The BIGGER Picture!

The essay we are writing in class can make a big impact in the "real world". The essay can be given to whomever we are writing to, the audience, and they can then consider your solution to the problem. After considering your solution, if they are persuaded enough, they can put your solution into action to try to correct the problem. Then, the problem may be fixed or at a better place than it was before! Therefore, this essay can make an impact in the "real world"! "Proposing a solution" can fit into everyday life because you can continue to come up with solutions to problems that affect you or the community that you are living in. You can then try to put these solutions in place to try to correct your problem.

Problems!

A problem that really gets under my skin is littering. I know it is not a huge problem that will greatly impact the world, however, it really bothers me. I cannot stand it when I see people littering. It can cause harm to animals or plants that are nearby. I just don't see why people cannot take that extra few seconds to walk to a trash can to throw something out. It does not take that much effort. A solution to this problem could be to have stricter punishments for people who litter. Also, if signs were posted saying, "If you litter, you will be punished," people would be constantly reminded not to litter, and would be more fearful of littering knowing that they could get punished.