Individual Response

Our project is choosing between a Mac or a PC for upcoming Ball State students. We believe that the best way to do this is through a website. We are using the freeware site weebly. Our website is going to have a lot of different aspects to it. The home page is very easy to see and gets straight to the point with two different links for either Mac or PC.

We are going to use this website for more of an informative piece for both sides rather than trying to persuade to one way or the other. It is going to show all of the aspects for both sides and try to show the best parts of each.

Our group gets along really well and we are all doing our part in the project. Two of us are researching PC and the other, Mac. This is really helpful because we can try to stay with our one side rather than having to flip-flop between the two.

Group Project

Our group is working on a website to help current and future Ball State students to choose between buying a Mac or a PC. We have split our jobs up to where two of us are gathering information on Macs and the other two are finding PC information.

This is going to be helpful to try and decide which type of computer is better for your specific needs. We aren't going to be going for or against either one, we are simply stating the facts about these two products. This is why this website will be very helpful.

From Beginning to End

The beginning and ending of a paper is a crucial part of your writing. I believe the most important is the beginning. If you have a catchy and exciting start, your readers will want to continue to read and explore what you are saying. You can start it with a rhetorical situation or a story; either way, you need a strong beginning.

The ending to your papers are also important. You need to leave your reader wanting more after the paper is done. There are several ways to end a paper. One is to summarize everything that you have explained. Another is to end with an anecdote. My favorite is to refer to the beginning of the story and tie it in with everything else.

Cause, Classify, and Compare

There were three main points to the reading today. First off was cause and effect. This just basically told us how to organize and analyze different kinds of causes and effects. There are several ways to do this but I believe that the best way to is by identifying a cause and then discuss the effects.

Next was classifying and dividing information. When you classify something you are grouping it with similar things. The book uses the example of how a linguist would classify certain languages as romance languages.

The last part of our reading was comparing and contrasting. There are two ways to do this. One is the block method. In this method you find all of the information about one object at one time and then move on to the next item. The second method is the point-by-point method. Here you focus on specific points of comparison.

Reading Strategies

Reading is so much more to just reading the text and turning the page. You have to try and understand exactly what they are saying to you, the reader. Are they trying to convince you to buy something? Are they trying to tell you an old childhood story?

No matter what, you are definitely going to have an opinion on this. If you are wanting to show how you feel there are several strategies to truly understanding that and the text. One in general is the "believing and doubting game."

Text Analysis

There is so much to textual analysis. This section showed all sorts of different kinds. One in particular that I liked was how the Gettysburg Address applies to Americans after 9/11. I think that is really cool how it can be used to today's terms.

With all of the different kinds of textual analysis, I think it is kind of hard to say that there is one form of a correct way. Everyone has so much different opinions on things. However this will be a very useful chapter to help out on things of that such.

Editing and Proofreading

Editing and proofreading is an essential part of writing. If you take the time to do this right on every paper, your writing will have much more to it and also cleaner. You need to check your paragraphs and make sure that they don't run off course of the paper. Also when you are proofreading, make sure that the words you use are correct (ex: wright, right.) If you continually do this, your papers will become much better