I really enjoyed getting to read everyone's work and get feedback on my own through this course. I enjoy
writing out my own ideas, but I struggle with understanding how other people will interpret what I have to
say, and that was one of the most valueable aspects of this forum for me. Not only did we all read and
comment on our classmates work, but we had a chance to see how other students interpreted our own work
and the work of others at the same time. I want to take this time to thank everyone who worked
constructively in this forum to help improve the work of other's in the eyes of an audience, and who took
criticism to heart when revising their own work. Anybody can write a paper that is existentially pleasing, but it
takes interaction to write an essay that gets through to other people, and that is where I saw the most value in
this course. Good luck in your future studies!
To all my online classmates,
I did not seek out this class. I took it because I needed the credit and, because it was online, it fit my
hectic scheldule. I did not expect this course to have such an impact on me. I learned more than I anticipated
about ethics in science and some of my strict views have been changed. I feel like I am more open to
differing opinons about such things as gene therapy and GMO's.
When I posted to the online forum, I realized I had to be symapthetic to all aspects of society because it
wasn't just an instructor looking at my comments, but a whole room full of people. With all of my answers
being looked at and commented on, it was like having a speech due evey week.
Everyone has been open to my views and has responded with differing views, but with respect for the
opinions of all. I have learned from each of you. Thanks also for being constructively critical of my papers. It
was extremly helpful!
Thanks so much for a great quarter!
I feel like all of these goals have been met for me. I’ve definitely learned a lot about researching and how to
find a reliable source which is really helpful now and always will be. The follow-the-source assignment was
really helpful for that. The argument synthesis has helped me compare and contrast information and different
studies to find the most true information. Having discussions with peers has helped me evaluate subjects and
then be able to see them from other points of view. I have a hard time thinking outside the box so being able
to always have other opinions is really helpful for me. Thanks everyone for your feedback and discussions!
This was my first e-learning class. It was much better than I anticipated. I expected scheduled online class
meetings, etc. Frankly, the post four days a week policy did set me off a bit, but it helped improve my
punctuality when submitting assignments. I often forced myself to stop procrascinating. My writing, analyzing,
and interpretation skills also saw visible improvement. Thank you all for a great quarter! I hope we meet again.
The course has aided me in establishing better research skills, a greater appreciation and knowledge of once
unknown words, and has provided me with a few key concepts (ethos, pathos, logos) that I would have not
given much thought on. The readings were quite entertaining for the most part and the student exchanged on
this forum helped, even if just a little, in understanding the reading.
Unfortunaly for me if I had posted more often to the forums I think I would have benefited much more from
this course, but when half the students don't take it seriously, and this being my opinion, participating almost
seems like a waste. Nevertheless, I see that the forum provided the chance to reflect and interact and when
thinking critically dialogue is necessary.
- Omar
In regards to the class as a whole, I feel that the most important thing that I learned was to read more
critically, and to pay attention to sources. There is a popular meme going around that says something
like, “Studies show that 98% of people will believe anything that begins with ‘Studies show.…’” I think
that the skills I’ve developed in this class will help me to not be part of that (fictional) 98%. The second
most important skill I developed was to conduct limited, focused research and to evaluate sources and
information. Learning how to choose a narrow topic was quite important to this skill.
I love the science topic and enjoyed reading the passages in the books regarding the importance of science.
The main part that I am taking away with me from this class would be the source assignment and tracing the
information back to the original source. I read a lot of news articles and being able to locate the original
information was something I had never done before. I felt it was definitely an important lesson. At the same
time as far as my development in the class, this would be the only thing that I actually felt I learnt. There
weren’t enough feedback or personal writing assignments that I could turn in to get a better gadget for myself
as a writer. I believe if the reading assignments had little snippets that we could turn in aside from the
forums/posts I would be able to say there was more that I learned but I cannot say so. Other than this I
enjoyed the class and reading the posts as well as interacting with everyone regarding science, truly makes me
remember the good old days when Bill Nye the science guy aired on TV more often.
1. Read critically in order to analyze, discuss, evaluate, and respond to texts.
I believe the follow the source assignment greatly helped my learning in evaluating texts by actively reading
through sources.
2. Write in order to discover the meanings in the texts of others.
Again, the follow the source assignment as well as the argument synthesis assignment helped develop
my skills in analyzing the work of others.
3. Write in order to discover their own ideas in relation to the texts of others.
Help from my peers greatly influenced the development of my writing and helped me to grow as a
writer.
4. Develop the skills of writing to communicate ideas to a particular audience.
Again peer responses greatly helped develop my skills as well as JC feedback.
5. Paraphrase, quote, and cite sources according to conventional MLA form, and to integrate source
materials smoothly into their own words in order to add support andemphasis to their own writing.
I believe my paraphrasing and MLA skills were pretty developed before this class but this course gave
me the opportunity to put them to use.
6. Produce writing that has been revised, edited, and proofread and to submit the work on time.
Also a skill I used prior to this class.
7. Continue develop their voice as a writer.
Peer and JC feedback was a great help. Sometimes I feel like my work only makes sense to me but
everyone here helped my voice become relatable to others.
8. Conduct limited, focused research and evaluate sources and information
I have always been a good researcher but this class helped open my eyes to the task of locating full text,
credible, free, and relevant papers. Especially the follow the source assignment.
While I found the subject of this class entertaining and enjoyed the discussions, I found the course to be
dramatically less challenging than my sophomore honors English class in high school. I don't feel as though I
learned anything new. There integration of technology is heavier than before, but the tricks to writing an
informative or persuasive paper are the same, MLA format hasn't changed in any significant way and I don't
feel that I received any impactful feedback that has changed my voice as a writer. Interpretive reading and
writing was an assignment, but relying on peer reviews to provide insights into structure and voice did not
seem to drum up any new ideas. Academically it would be nice to have organized feedback about writing
strategies: "Look at the way you approached your argument in this passage. You may have overextended your
introduction to this topic, thus detracting from the content. Stylistically these are your options; x, y, z. The
strengths and weakness of options x, y, z are such and such. By looking at your paper and your own strengths
and weaknesses, I'd suggest employing this, that or the other, to develop your skills as a writer." I enjoy
writing and thus enjoyed the course, but I did not find it educational.
This was a great course. I said this in my evaluation, but JC's instructions and expectations were very clear. I
thought it was a great idea to weave the subject of science into this course. It made it very interesting. "A
Sequence for Academic Writing" was also a great book that I will definitely use in the future.
The instructor as well as student feedback was very helpful as well. I feel that this course definitely improved
my writing skills.
I've been an online student for 2 years and JC is one of the few instructors that uses the Angel platform in a
way that makes it easy to navigate and understand. I felt very engaged in the class even though I've never
seen any of the participants.
I would also like to encourage students to use ratemyprofessors.com. I think it's important for students to give
their feedback on all of their instructors. It is also anonymous so I feel that the ratings are more genuine.
As far as the goals for this course goes, I think I was quite successful at gleaning essential tools as a
writer and researcher. I think that I definitely managed each goal to the best of my ability and found the
books and assignments highly resourceful. With so much material out there, these are skills that should
be widely shared by the general public. I am glad I was required to take the course and found
classmate's analyses of my writing very beneficial. I also appreciated JC and her attentiveness to each
inquiry asked of her. I dont think it was easy to accomplish all the details of the assignments, but it was
certainly attainable. I think the chronological structure of the assignments was laid out perfectly, as it
made the assignment afterward more possible than I think my skills would have done on their own.
Reading Lies was was very eye-opening and informative especially. The knowledge shared in that book is
so important if we are ever going to make legitimate progress as consumers.
1. I think that I have gotten a better grasp on how to analyze & dissect texts, how to pull out the thesis, its
points, and evidence. Doing this enables a better, more focused discussion. Where I can improve is the ability
to evaluate - be more critical with critical thinking. I know this is an on-going process, and as a fan of skeptical
thinking I better practice what I preach!
2. Discovering meaning in others' texts helps by knowing how to summarize well and reforming the author's
points in your own words. I think I was able to improve that this quarter.
3. I was able to understand synthesis a little bit more this quarter because of the theme and how the articles
relate with each other.
4. I can use more improvement on how I communicate with an audience. I'm not quite sure how to separate
how I write with an assigned essay (isn't the audience always your instructor), and how I write at work, etc.
5. MLA format seems to always change with citing online sources. I just used what was on the Purdue OWL
web site.
6. My writing is always proofread and submitted on time. Even in discussions, I will write in MS Word to look
for grammatical and spelling errors. With essays, I usually try to have a second pair of eyes look for any
glaring mistakes.
7. I seem to have a style of voice that I have developed as a writer, but that usually involves using a more
conversational approach (I write what I actually hear in my head, if that makes sense?). I realize that this
could be improved with time, and always a need to be more concise and focused which has been my biggest
challenge.
8. Again, being focused and concise is difficult. Even with research, there is so much out there to consider, and
to keep my thesis narrow as well.
Overall, I tend to be my own worst critic, but I think I improved my skills (analysis, summarizing, research)
from ENG 101. This quarter has been especially challenging taking TWO online classes from JC (Film History
being the other one), and it has pushed my time management skills to the limit. I wish I had the time to focus
on one or the other, and I'm sure many others have the same experience. Outside of class, I have promised
myself to keep practicing, coming up with some of my own essay ideas, and just try to write a little bit several
times a week. It is a valuable skill, but requires much constant practice than what is required to pass a class.
Good luck to everyone!
1. I think that I have gotten a better grasp on how to analyze & dissect texts, how to pull out the thesis, its
points, and evidence. Doing this enables a better, more focused discussion. Where I can improve is the ability
to evaluate - be more critical with critical thinking. I know this is an on-going process, and as a fan of skeptical
thinking I better practice what I preach!
2. Discovering meaning in others' texts helps by knowing how to summarize well and reforming the author's
points in your own words. I think I was able to improve that this quarter.
3. I was able to understand synthesis a little bit more this quarter because of the theme and how the articles
relate with each other.
4. I can use more improvement on how I communicate with an audience. I'm not quite sure how to separate
how I write with an assigned essay (isn't the audience always your instructor), and how I write at work, etc.
5. MLA format seems to always change with citing online sources. I just used what was on the Purdue OWL
web site.
6. My writing is always proofread and submitted on time. Even in discussions, I will write in MS Word to look
for grammatical and spelling errors. With essays, I usually try to have a second pair of eyes look for any
glaring mistakes.
7. I seem to have a style of voice that I have developed as a writer, but that usually involves using a more
conversational approach (I write what I actually hear in my head, if that makes sense?). I realize that this
could be improved with time, and always a need to be more concise and focused which has been my biggest
challenge.
8. Again, being focused and concise is difficult. Even with research, there is so much out there to consider, and
to keep my thesis narrow as well.
Overall, I tend to be my own worst critic, but I think I improved my skills (analysis, summarizing, research)
from ENG 101. This quarter has been especially challenging taking TWO online classes from JC (Film History
being the other one), and it has pushed my time management skills to the limit. I wish I had the time to focus
on one or the other, and I'm sure many others have the same experience. Outside of class, I have promised
myself to keep practicing, coming up with some of my own essay ideas, and just try to write a little bit several
times a week. It is a valuable skill, but requires much constant practice than what is required to pass a class.
Good luck to everyone!
I got the most out of the research practice and the follow the source assignment. I got much quicker at finding
and following sources in scholarly articles and doing research in general, and I think that's pretty neat. I felt
that voice and speaking to a particular audience weren't developed very much. Although we did have a certain
audience in mind, it was pretty much the same audience for all the writings we did, so I don't know that I
learned anything new about adapting your writing for different audiences. And with the scientific topic and
research orientation, there just wasn't as much of a window to work on our own voice as a writer as there
might be with other types of papers or writing styles. I think that's ok though, I didn't really have that
expectation until I looked at the course objectives again just now.
I think the goals of this course were met largely due to the fact that the assignments were lengthy
and took a lot of research, and attention to details. Also, the class did a great job communicating
feedback, and asking a lot of questions. In each assignment we had to identify the author/s as
credible or not, and find sources that were credible or not. We learned to differentiate between a
good source and a bad source. Because of this my point of view changed, especially after
reading "Lies, Damned Lies, and Science". You need to understand who the author's audience
is to understand the validity of the argument.
The work had strict deadlines, with no exceptions, which forced us to make sure we new due dates, and
planned accordingly. I loved the constant "don't procrastinate, you'll regret it" reminders from JC on your
second assignment. She was so right!
The most valuable take away from this course, for me, was to understand what your reading, pay attention to
the source, and use quotes and sources effectively.
The assignment I learned the most from this quarter was definitely the follow the source
assignment. I'd never used Google scholar before and I found that to be a really quick and easy tool
that I'll be able to use in the future. Following the path of sources or analyzing how a scholarly text
utilizes the sources it lists are things that I'd never specifically needed to do before, but I'm glad to
have learned how. Being able to be an informed and critical reader is good in any context, I think. In
response to the specific learning objectives:
1.Read critically in order to analyze, discuss, evaluate, and respond to texts.
Yes, I think we got good practice of that by responding to different texts from
our books and by analyzing chosen pieces in our papers.
2.Write in order to discover the meanings in the texts of others.
To an extent yes, I don't think we spent a lot of time analyzing meaning of texts
within our paper or discussions.
3.Write in order to discover their own ideas in relation to the texts of others.
I think we had some practice of this in the final paper and did a bit of it in our
discussions but the focus of the writing didn't usually seem to be about our
own ideas.
4.Develop the skills of writing to communicate ideas to a particular audience.
We covered this a little, but we were also generally writing to the same
audience every time.
5.Paraphrase, quote, and cite sources according to conventional MLA form, and
to integrate source materials smoothly into their own words in order to add
support and emphasis to their own writing.
This was covered well, I definitely think we can all do this after this course.
6.Produce writing that has been revised, edited, and proofread and to submit
the work on time.
Yes, we got good practice of this.
7.Continue develop their voice as a writer.
Yes, practicing writing in general I think helps develop a person's voice. I think
it was valuable to get some practice writing about scientific topics, as that's not
something I normally do. But at the same time, that's not really the voice or
style I would likely write in going forward.
8.Conduct limited, focused research and evaluate sources and information
This part was the biggest outcome of the class for me, I definitely learned how
to do limited focused research and how to evaluate sources and information
better and quicker than I knew how to before.