FEEDBACK

SEE ATTACHED

ENGLISH FEEDBACK

 

More than likely, all of the revisions listed below stem from me being crazy stupid and not reading the instructions for WA1. I saw that we were supposed to write a response to the four short essays found in our textbook, so I did.  Here’s what I thought about essay one, two three and four. Done. Submit. No intro, no thesis, no conclusion…just me writing nonsensical gibberish and spouting off opinions.  So, knowing that my first draft of WA1 is so completely wrong, coming up with only 3-5 areas of improvement will be easy.

 

HOCs

 

1.  My WA1 has no introduction paragraph and definitely no thesis statement that should be near the end of that.  My first paragraph immediately starts with me ripping apart the article by Kerry Soper and how I think that it was a waste of ink. Case in point, “When I read the topic, which is now the title of this response essay assignment, I imagined being introduced to articles that would talk about learning techniques never imagined prior to the introduction of computers in the class room. Imagine, then, my utter dismay at reading a lackluster attempt at humor in Rate My Professorsappearance.com by Kerry Soper.”

 

2.  No thesis. If you read my number 1 above then this statement should be of no surprise. Because I had no introduction paragraph, I had no thesis statement at the end of it. Instead, I ended my first paragraph with this, “I’m also quite sure that if the author ever lost the over-mentioned 15-pounds, he would have nothing to write about.”  As you can see, a thesis statement would surely be welcome over that rubbish.

 

3.   Audience.  My attempt at WA1 was, at best, a bit unprofessional.  I was not aware that I should not use words that convey emotion.  Here is an example, after “reviewing” three articles that I felt didn’t really meet the mark of technology in education; I got to the paragraph where I gave my opinion of Twitter Goes to College. If you’ve read it, you’ll know that it actually had something to do with technology improving education. So after the three weak articles, I started my last paragraph regarding Twitter with this, “Ahhhh, finally!  An article that deals with technology in the classroom.”  As you can tell, that sort of writing is verboten within the Response Essay.

 

LOCs

 

1.  No more evidence of my personal experiences or me.  I thought that while doing a response essay, I would be responding to a certain topic, or in this case, a set of essays. In either case, I thought that my response should find its way in the essay somewhere. I’m still confused about this.  In a body paragraph referring to the “Baby Einstein” article, I wrote this, “I used to watch cartoons growing up on Saturday mornings for roughly 5-straight hours, preferably with a bowl of Kix. But just because I watched Scooby-Doo didn’t mean I learned that dogs could talk.”  This type of personal reference with a response essay is a no-no.

 

2.  No informal expressions.  I used an exclamation point and I have learned that in a formal academic writing course, emotion conveyed with an exclamation point is not to be used unless I’m using it within a direct quote.

NUMEBR 2

Fellow classmates, I share in spirit the sentiment that our mutual classmate Shannon Douglas Fiedler felt in his response. I obviously failed to capture the true intent of WA1 and thus I had some major revisions to work through.  And here they are…

HOCs

Did I clarify my audience and the purpose of a piece of writing?

What I did to clarify my audience and provide purpose was to send only my introductory paragraph to a colleague and ask him to relay to me the purpose based on only the first paragraph.  He got 50% of the purpose correct.  I had to include a sentence connecting the first four sentences of the introductory paragraph to the thesis, thereby eliminating any doubt as to my purpose. Also, I needed to make a “bridge” that connected my thesis to the rest of the paper. I was able to accomplish both with one sentence.

 

Are there places in the paper where more details, examples, or specifics are needed?

In the three body paragraphs, I made the mistake of not including enough content from the articles in question.  I had to go back and add substance to each of the paragraphs.  I now have a minimum of two quotes/paraphrases per article. Plus my three main paragraphs now have sub-topics that are part of the thesis.

 

Make a brief outline. Does the organization make sense? Should any part be moved to another part?

It did not make sense. My introductory paragraph was vague so I added a better thesis. I used the refined thesis to create my new outline.  I have three distinct sub-topics I used to create the outline. The new outline allowed me to focus only on the sub-topic in question and leave the others alone.

 
LOCs

Are there a few problems that frequently occur? Keep a list of problems that recur and check for those.

Yes, I kept lower casing some well-known proper nouns.  I was not aware that some of them should be capitalized, so I ended up fixing them.

 

Ask yourself why you put punctuation marks in certain places. Do you need to check any punctuation rules?

I had to check all of my punctuation to ensure I did not miss anything. I found a few stray commas, some long sentences, and even an unexplained exclamation point.

 
 

HISTORY FEEDBACK!

The postclassical period produced a variety of circumstances that enabled Indian Ocean trade to flourish.  An increase in agricultural production allowed people to concentrate on manufacturing products that could be traded along the growing trade routes available. 

Due to Southern India’s dry weather and an increasing need for water to irrigate crops for a growing populace, innovative irrigation techniques were devised.  Along with creating canals, wells, and tunnels Indians even constructed a huge reservoir that covered 250 square miles.  “Bentley and Ziegler pg. 311”

Population grew steadily in India as a result of an increase in agricultural and manufacturing production.

[1]

  As the population of India grew the area became more urbanized.  This was especially apparent in the southern coastal trade cities such as Cambay, Surat, Calicut, Quilon, and Masulipatam.

[2]

  Despite ongoing turmoil during this period in history, trade amongst neighbors in the region flowed progressively. Natural resources and spices that were not available in some areas such as iron, copper, salt, pepper, and certain crops such as rice were traded heavily in the region.

[3]

  The Chola Kingdom was instrumental in facilitating trade in the Southern Indian region from 850 to 1267 C.E.  Chola rulers were primarily interested in maximizing profits by establishing a strong navy to allow goods to flow freely.  Chola leaders taxed goods that were transported through port cities, thereby economically strengthening their kingdom.

[4]

  Additionally, Hindu temples in Southern India served as hubs for agricultural production that the Chola Kingdom also benefitted from by receiving tax revenues from their production and trade. 

[5]

Gained knowledge through years of navigating and studying monsoon winds and ocean currents in the Indian Ocean allowed mariners to take advantage of when to travel and extend their voyages.  Additionally, larger naval vessels were constructed that could haul more cargo.  Southern Indian ports were centrally located between the African continent to the west of India and the eastern border of China to the east of India. India established storage warehouses for goods that could be traded, sold or stored by any ships using their ports.  The centralized location and constant naval traffic enabled the exchange of culture, religion and ideas that was unique during this period in history.

[6]

Specialized goods produced in India such as fine cotton products, refined sugar, tanned leather, carved stone, and woven carpets were highly valued.  Other Asian countries also traded specialty goods such as silk, porcelain, lacquer ware, spices, incense, horses, gold, ivory, and slaves.

[7]

  Overall, Indian leaders of this era allowed the open trade of products and resources to travel freely through there southern port cities.  They capitalized on the economic benefits of their centralized location.  In the end, trade in this region connected societies thousands of miles apart and encouraged the migration and exploration to other regions of the world.

 

NUMBER 2

 I am not too familiar with the Islamic religion or anything, I have been wondering something since I started reading this chapter.  I focused on the same question you did, and I was wondering about your opinion on this:  Muhammed didn’t lie out who was to take his place after his death, which created that deep separation between the Sunni’s and the Shiites, did Muhammed think that he was going to live forever, or become and angel after his death so he could keep teaching the message to followers?  It seems to me that if you want something to stick, one should make a plan for after their death, if they truly believe in something, they shouldn’t be worried about it for only their lifetime, but people for lifetimes to come.  It is something I have been asking myself for a couple of days now, what do you think?

BIO FEEDBACK!

This was great. It reminds me of a book that I read written by Bill Bryson I think. The book is “A Short History of Nearly Everything” and I started reading it awhile ago.

Anyways, this chapter talked about the beginning of earth and the changes that happened to help life exist. At first, according to the “big bang theory” all life in the universe originated from a single point. Then, in a single instant the whole universe exploded outward at which point all energy and existing matter suddenly appeared. The galaxy soon formed as did our solar system. Earth started as steroids crashing into each other and sticking to one another. Eventually the mass grew and grew and was constantly bombarded with other asteroids and meteors. The surface of the earth was inhospitable as any water that got near earth was evaporated instantly due to the high temperature. Eventrually however seas did form. This is where life on earth first began.

The source of lifes building blocks were first discovered by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey. Many scientists of the time thought that the Earth’s early atmosphere consisted of several gases; methane, ammonia, and hydrogen. Miller and Urey put these gases into a chamber with some water, shot some electricity through it to simulate lightning, and within a week there were amino acids and other small molecules forming. There were other reactions with other gases, such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide (which is said to have been Earth’s early atmosphere). After the experiment was conducted, Miller was unable to detect any amino acid formation what-so-ever. What Miller didnt account for was that water could have prevented the loss of the amino acids that were broken down in some of the reactions resulting from the experiment. Rains would have washed the amino acids into the seas where the breakdown reaction would not have occured.

The origin of the cell membranes and metabolism is very interesting. There are plenty of hypotheses that state many different things. Such as pyrite and its many pours could have housed the cells before they even had a cell membrane. This was very interesting to think that life couldnt have possibly happened if it wasnt for a pourus rock in just the right conditions (underwater near a hydrothermal vent).

The fact that there are micro fossils that have been found as old as 3.5 billion years ago. Its absolutely incredible. One thing that did raise a question was that why does it only seem to be Australia? Have these microfossils been found anywhere else?

The effects of the increase in oxygen really changed things. Life could no longer form from non living things and thus a factor that influenced the evolution to aerobic cells. As oxygen became more abundant, so did aerobic respiration. It is more efficient and requires less energy than other reactions. As the atmosphere became oxygen enriched, oxygen molecules broke apart and then recombined as ozone. The formation of the ozone layer of the atmosphere prevented the harmful penetration of uv radiation from the sun and was able to allow life to move to land.

I had no idea that there were fossilized fossils of eukaryotic cells that were visable to the naked eye. That is looking back in time to see something that survived that long ago.

In early chapters it was discovered that mitochondria and chloroplasts could have quite possibly been a parasitic bacteria that implanted itself into the that of the eukaryotic cell. This relationship then became known as endosymbiosis. Eventually, cells were unable to survive without the symbiont and the symbiont was unable to survive without the symbiont host.

 

NUMBER2

HIV came from Africa from eating monkey. It traveled from Africa to Haiti and then from there it came to the United States. Viruses replicate by attaching to a host the cant seek out the specific host so they just float along hopping to run into the host that is needed. HIV uses the host cell to create itself by tricking the cell into thinking it is reproducing itself. West Nile virus was spread from birds that migrated that were infected. Mosquitoes bite us and that is why we are focused on mosquitos. Bacteria uses slime or pili to attach to different surfaces. Bacteria reproduces by binary fission, which is an a sexual kind of way. Bacteria was the first to produce oxygen rather then plants. If bacteria get inside of a cut that cut could in fact become a lot worse then what it was. Many of the STD’s are spread from bacteria. One is spirchetes which is inside of a cow and the other is chlamydias which is also known as chlamydia. Carl Woese was the one to discover Archaea. Archaeans and bacteria have different cell walls. Archaeans have three classifications. One produces methane, one loves salt and another loves very hot temperatures.

Number 3

Protists are organisms that produce oxygen. Some protists can be harmful to humans especially if there are blooms of them occurring. Diplomonads live where there is not any oxygen. They live and survive deep in the oceans and also reside inside animals. Diplomonads, parabasalid, trypanosomes, and euglenoids are all types of flagellated protozoans. Foraminiferans. plankton, and radiolarians are all considered mineral-shelled protozoans. Dinoflagellate, part of the alveolates, has two flagella that causes it to rotate when moving. Malaria get into out liver and when the cell bursts that’s when we get sick and when the liver gets infected that is when we get really sick and possibly die. Brown algae can be found in everyday products. Red algae is what sushi is wrapped in. Green algae is eaten in Scotland and is known as sea lettuce. All land plants are thought to evolve from algae. Amoebas is what causes dysentery when you drink water with cysts within it. 

Number 4

Week 6 topic 4

Pollen- Male gametophyte of a seed plant. 

Seed- Of seed plants, embryo sporophyte and nutritive tissue inside of a waterproof coat. 

Bryophytes- They have no xylem or phloem, gametophyte predominant, water required for fertilization, and they are seedless. Examples of this are liverworts, hornworts, and mosses.

Seedless Vascular plants- Vascular tissue is present, sporophyte predominant, water required for fertilization, and they are sedless. Examples are club mosses, spike mosses, whisk ferns, horsetails, and ferns. 

Gymnosperms- Vascular tissue is present, sporophyte predominant, Pollen grains the water are not required for fertilization, and they have naked seeds. Examples are gnetophytes, ginkgos, conifers, and cycads. 

Angiosperms- Vascular tissue present, sporophyte predominant, pollen grains and the water is not fertilized, seeds form in a floral ovary that becomes a fruit. Examples are monocats, eudicots, and relatives. 

What’s the difference between Gymnosperms and Angiosperms? Gymnosperms, they have naked seeds where the Angiosperms have seeds that form in a floral ovary that becomes a fruit.

Number 5

Fungi travels from place to place using the wind. What travels is the spores of the fungi. Some spore that have traveled have landed and killed many different crops. Some of the spore are harmless while others are deadly. Fungi digest their food by releasing enzymes on to the food itself. There are single celled and multi celled fungi. Chytrids are some of the oldest living types of fungi. They live in water as well as some animal stomach. Some types of fungi are ok to eat. Blue cheese has a type of sac fungi within it to give it a certain taste. Sac fungi is also used to make bread and beer. Sac fungi is what causes yeast infections as well. Club fungi are mushrooms by example. Club fungi is also important because it brakes down all of the rotting wood on the forest floor. Plants and fungi work together to survive. Athletes foot is a growth of fungi. Ringworm is not a actual worm instead its a type of fungi. Spores are what is dangerous is plants and animals.