My Thoughts on Comments

I recently wrote a blog post called My Controversy where I discussed how professional athletes (specifically Hope Solo) are under constant scrutiny from the public eye in regards to their personal lives. Controversy is always surrounded by a public opinion which is readily found in the comments section. For various reasons some comments seem to be credible while others do not.

Using The Guardian as my source for comments, two of them stood out as they did not seem credible at all.

Jankowski, Jessica. "Screenshot" 8/29/2015. 

This commenter seems to be expressing anger rather than taking an impersonal stance on the subject by attacking Solo, calling her a "disgrace". Since this comment is rather abrupt, the commenter's personal values are limited to his/her anger towards Solo. No reasoning was provided as to why Solo is a "disgrace", so the comment is revealed to be in spite of anger rather than reason. Additionally, proper capitalization was not utilized in the comment, further taking away from the commenter's credibility.

Jankowski, Jessica. "Screenshot" 8/29/2015

Although the use of creative wording in "there's no hope for Hope" is attention grabbing, this commenter seems to be expressing a fantasy about an athlete that doesn't seem to be relevant. By going off topic and mentioning dog fighting and dog "TORTURING/MURDERING" the commenter looses credibility. TheLongMarcher does seem to be against athletes participating in illegal activities as he believes there is no "hope for Hope", however by skewing off topic his/her credibility is lost. 

Some commenters showed credibility while discussing the topic on Hope.

Jankowski, Jessica. "Screenshot" 8/29/2015

This commenter expresses a credible fear about sports targeting "key players' to simply "side-line them" in the future. The reference to the US constitution that a person is to be presumed innocent until proven guilty adds credibility to the commenter's opinion. ProfHentryHiggins adds a valuable insight to not just Solo's position, but the impact that media has on athlete's lives and reputations. 

Jankowski, Jessica. "Screenshot" 8/29/2015

Now RobBarwick touches on the same concept that ProfHentryHiggins touched on; the fact of the article is that no charges were pressed against Hope Solo. This commenter expresses a wish for media to not portray an athlete as guilty of a crime if no criminal charges were charged. This commenter does not use inappropriate language to discuss his opinion on the article, so his credibility is not poor nor questioned.

Reflection:
After reading both of Carter and Jayni's blogs a lot of similarities emerged. In general, commenters who have personal experience relating to the topic of controversy are more credible than those who do not. Additionally, if a commenter personally attacks a person related to the controversy rather than commenting without personal opinion their credibility is lost.

My Controversy

In our society both male and female athletes are under immense pressure as not only their athletic career is constantly analyzed, but their personal lives and decisions are criticized, too.

Jankowski, Jessica. "Screenshot" 8/29/2015.

I find athletic controversies extremely interesting because of the level of celebrity that our society places on these athletes. This article from USA Today  emphasizes the personal drama that the women's World Cup athlete Hope Solo in enduring.  A few years ago Solo faced charges for domestic violence, "profane language towards police", and a 30 day suspension form the national team for allowing her husband to drive a Team USA vehicle while under the influence of alcohol.

Even though these incidents happened a couple years ago, Solo was still in the eye of the media due to the then upcoming World Cup.

Calendar Reflection

The rumors about college being the busiest time of your life are TRUE. After filling out a weekly calendar of all my activities and school work, I now understand why college students don't sleep.

CollegeDegrees360. "Two College Girls Learning in the Library"
July 12, 2012. Creative Commons Public License. 

I know that I am the type of person who works well under a busy schedule however I will have to step up my game to stay on top of my job, homework, sorority events, and possibly lacrosse practices. Six hours of homework is a lot of work for just one class. Regardless, this is the life I signed up for.

In order to keep my GPA up and also still be involved I will need to budget my time very carefully. Instead of doing all of my homework the night before it's due I will need to set aside at least one hour each night for each class. The workload will be spread out more and I will have more opportunities to be social and create quality work. It can be done!

Reflection
After reading Emma's Blog and Nick's Blog I learned that everyone seems to be busy in their own way! I related to Emma as we are both involved in sorority life and with that comes a huge time commitment. I hope to get to the gym often like she does, but I know classwork has to come first. Nick is really busy with his engineering major which I relate to as my architecture major comes with a large and demanding workload. I know that if everyone else is really busy and can manage their time well, I can too.

My Writing Process

My writing process isn't groundbreaking, however having come to an understanding of what type of writer I am has definitely been eye opening on how I can improve for future assignments.

Pasternak, Lenoid. "The Passion of Creation" 19th century. Public
Domain. 

When it comes to what type of writer I consider myself to be I have learned that I am both a Sequential Composer and a Procrastinator. Writing is a slow and difficult process for me, not unlike hiking an incline of a mountain barefoot on a Monday. Writing more frequently has helped be become a better and faster writer, but there's always room to improve. 

My writing process absolutely doesn't include enough revising after I finish a paper/assignment. Similar to the aspects of the Sequential Composer, I tend to rely on written outlines of what I am going to write and I edit as I go. My Procrastination monster inside me is caused by overthinking the daunting task of writing more than just ideas down on paper for a grade. Ugh. 

Overall, my writing process seems to be successful as I can write what is required almost all of the time. My strengths lie in my planning and outlining, my weaknesses lie in my procrastination, overthinking, and general lack of confidence when getting started. 

It would be interesting to see if my writing improves by not gathering my ideas before writing and instead becoming a Heavy Revisor and editing everything after I am done writing. I think a good balance in writing would be to be a mix of a Heavy revisor and a Sequential Composer. Revising is key, yet improvements can be made by planning ahead.

Reflection

After reading some of the other posts from my fellow classmates, I have realized that we are all in the same boat. In general we hall have successful habits and challenging habits when it comes to our writing. Kelly and I had very similar writing strategies as we both over analyze every paragraph or sentence as we write.

My other classmate Brian has writing tendencies that I would like to work towards. Both are heavy revisers, they spend time after they write trying to improve their work. It is interesting to see how they view it as having a positive impact on their writing, yet nobody is perfect and everything has something to improve on.