In this blog post I am going to summarize the video we watched in class about reflective writing. I will then tell you about my experience I have had this semester with reflective writing.
Reflective writing is documenting your reflective thinking. It is a three-stage process. It is about looking back, analyzing, and applying the knowledge in the future. Instead of just descriptive writing, you should write about your thoughts and feelings, during, after, and since. You also need to look at how it made you feel, why you did it that way, how you will change it in the future. You should use a small amount of description and a large amount of reflection. Description should be used just to put the reflection into context. Hindsight is important to look back on the event and use the information to change things in the future. That way you can use the knowledge to adapt to other situations. Reflection is trying to get every bit out of your learning. It is difficult when you start reflecting but will become easier with time and it is very rewarding and builds self-confidence. I have found reflective writing to be very difficult for me. I find myself falling into the trap of being too descriptive and not digging deeper into my thoughts and feelings about my writing. On Tuesday in class after we watched the video, I went back and worked on my reflective writing about my research paper process. When I originally wrote this blog, I just answered the questions that Dr. Mangini had put in the instructions. I did not really do a good job in reflecting on what I had learned. It wasn’t until I went back and tried to reflect on what I had learned that I started to appreciate the process of reflective writing. It is difficult for me to write about the errors that I had made and how I will work to avoid them in the future. I think this is because I equate errors to weakness and I am very insecure with acknowledging weakness. I need to learn to accept the fact that I may make some mistakes so that I can learn. If I can accept these mistakes and reflect on how to use them in the learning process it will make me a better student in the future.
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In this blog I will be reflecting on the processes I used to create my MLA Research Paper.
While writing my research paper “Why Should America Adopt Universal Healthcare?”, I used many sources of help. My daughter and one of my friends were extremely helpful with organization and proper citing. I wrote this paper mainly at home over many sessions. This is a topic that cannot be covered properly in a just one session. I did quite a lot of research on my I-pad in different parts of the house. While I was researching on my i-pad I wrote down all of the points that I found interesting. After I had compiled a long list, I used this to create an outline of what I wanted to use and how to structure the paper. My daughter was very helpful to me with showing me this process and I will be using this method in the future. My only issue that I had was I wish I had taken better notes on where the information I researched came from. While doing the research I was so interested in what I was reading and following paths, I sometimes forgot to note where I went. I wasted a lot of time going back and finding the sources again. The next time I do this kind of research, I will try to work at my desk instead of around the house. If I do work in other places, I will make sure that I have a notebook with me and send links to myself on where I went. This is a persuasive paper in the MLA research paper genre. The rhetorical mode of this paper is argumentation, and this is the first paper I have written in this mode and genre. I was surprised at how both easy and difficult it was. The research was both interesting but difficult with citing. The topic that I chose is a very personal to me so that made my argument a little easier. I originally started out writing the paper with just the cost of healthcare in mind but soon realized that the moral aspect was more important to me. Struggling with a long-term disease has giving me a personal insight to both of these issues. In my research I found startling statistics that I found very disturbing. It has reinforced my belief that the lobbyists and wall street are trading on our quality of health for their own profit. This is a practice that must be stopped. I am eager to continue my research and add to the points that I feel are relevant to my position. I hope that in the future I can continue to choose research topics that I am so passionate about. In this blog I will have my annotated bibliography for my MLA research paper. This paper was written using a question found in the documentary Where to Invade Next by Michael Moore. The question that I have chosen to write about is should America have a free universal health care system. Where to Invade Next by Michael Moore Michael Moore starts this documentary by declaring that he is going to invade other countries to bring back successful solutions to problems that we have in the United States. During his travels he meets with government officials and business men and women to find out how they have been able to improve worker’s rights, school lunches, prison system, education, women’s rights, and more. In the end the solutions to most of these problems actually were ideas that were started in United States but not realized. This documentary is definitely biased in its opinions about how we could improve many things in the United States. Michael Moore does gain credibility by meeting with CEO’s and public officials. He does mention that he goes to these countries to pick the flowers and not the weeds. I have used this documentary to help me choose a topic for my research paper. I found the graph that listed our taxes and what services they include compared to other countries, very informative. The United States Census Bureau This is the United States Census Bureau. This site has statistical information on the population of the United States. In addition to the decennial census, the Census Bureau conducts other surveys and provides data to many other government agencies. Federal, state and local governments use this data to plan schools, hospitals, roads, police, are fire department needs. The United States Census guarantees non-disclosure and confidentiality. Personal information collected by the agency is not released to other agencies or the public for 72 years. This information is reliable and based on facts. This site has a 2016 report on health insurance coverage in the United States. It contains information collected in the 2014-2017 surveys. It states what percentage of people had health insurance in 2015 and 2016. The Canadian Census Program This is the Canadian Census Program. This site contains statistical information including analysis, data, reference, and geographical information regarding the Canadian population. The Canadian Census is taken every 5 years. The information collected is used for statistical purposes and are confidential. This information has no bias and is reliable. I have used information from the Canadian site to compare to the United States statistics. New study finds 45,000 deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage, Harvard Gazette This is a news article from the Harvard University Gazette which details deaths that would have otherwise been preventable if not for the fact that the victims did not have heath insurance. The study used surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The article points out that one American dies every 12 minutes from lack of health insurance. The author of this article seems to be biased towards the implementing of universal healthcare. He does a good job in gaining credibility by using well known sources. The facts presented make the need for universal health care evident. I will be using information about the studies mentioned in this article to show how many people suffer from not having adequate health insurance. Haeder, Simon F. and David L. Weimer. "Inching toward Universal Coverage: State-Federal Health-Care Programs in Historical Perspective." Journal of Policy History, vol. 27, no. 4, Oct. 2015, pp. 746-770. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1017/S0898030615000330. This is a paper written to show how the United States is on a progressive slope towards adopting universal health care if we keep following the path that we have already taken. It highlights our progression to the state we are at now. Also, this paper shows parallels to other countries gaining universal health care. This paper is relatively unbiased, relying mainly on past information to inform the possibility of future action. This paper relies mainly on hard facts and doesn’t lean either direction, mostly observing that based off of previous trends that we will most likely adopt a universal health care solution. I am going to use this to strengthen my argument on why we should switch to universal health care. It also shows how we can best progress from our current state. I will be using this paper to inform against the counter argument that the start up cost of universal health care would be prohibitive. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations This is the website for the United Nations. It is the human rights upon which the Geneva Conventions were based. It details one instance where the US had signed a bill claiming that health care is a universal right. This shows how hypocritical the US is in relation to what we do as opposed to what we tell other countries to do. This is an unbiased declaration signed in the late 1940’s and is used as a bedrock of the Geneva Convention. It is a list of basic human rights that all countries should adhere to. This article contains facts and figures used in the paper and to show that we should follow the standards that are recommended by the United Nations. Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), "OECD Health Data 2013," June 27, 2013 The OECD Health Data 2013 shows comparable data of health and health care for the 34 members. It shows health status, access to health services, mortality rate, and other key indicators. This is unbiased data and shows how the United States compares to other countries. I will use the facts and figures in this report to strengthen my argument. Himmelstein, David U., et al. "Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study." American Journal of Medicine, vol. 122, no. 8, Aug. 2009, pp. 741-746. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/j.amjmed.2009.04.012 This study was done to show the rate of medical bankruptcy in the United States. It shows the data from 2,314 surveys. This is unbiased data and shows the increase in medical bankruptcy increased forty-nine percent between 2001 and 2007. This will help show the amount of financial hardship our current system puts upon people with medical bills. |
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