D#14HW#1 Cover Letter Draft

Rocki Passano

Eng 102-2315

Professor Devon Adams

Cover Letter

The “Course Outcomes” did not include several areas critical to this course for this student; organization, time-management and technology. These were the first challenges to be addressed which were totally unexpected. These issues force one to come to terms with technology skill deficiencies, learn new tools, new software, and basically overcome any internet or technological phobias that might exist. The internet has always been a scientific source of information and data but has evolved into something much more, which is a little scary. The demands of this class along with other classes, professional, and personal commitments will require maximum efficient utilization of time. Organizational skills must be honed and refined; finally personal commitment and patience will be necessary in order to achieve success in this class. Establishing a daily schedule and discussing the schedule with family and or significant others was necessary because outside influences can distract from accomplishing goals set for the semester.

I prepared for the writing process by creating a research log. I took advantage of the help offered in The Bedford Researcher and the BedfordResearcher.com tools and activities as well as the websites provided by the instructor to began work exploring, choosing, and narrowing a topic. Next, collect, transcribe, and organizing all notes and recordings; began browsing the internet and talking to friends about the topics, always taking notes. Utilizing the Bedford Research Narrow Topic Research Plan to refine the topic, made it obvious that the topics I had chosen were too broad required additional attention. Answering those nine questions assists in narrowing the focus of the topic and also in defining the research question for the topic. Another important area vital to the process of writing a research paper includes evaluating articles or documents for a research paper with a questioning attitude and a sense of detective work. Developing an ability to identify an articles relevance to the topic and not spending too much time evaluating documents, articles, data bases, blogs, and web sites are vital and important to this process. Prior to this class it was easy to spend lots of time searching the web reading unusable information and basically wasting valuable time.

Being constantly aware of the chosen topic and the research question; being vigilant for information that can be useful, specifically, collecting information from each perspective of the research question and topic, because information can come from many media. Identifying the personal perspective, making a decision on additional or optional avenues of gaining data such as taking a survey, or interviewing people in the area of expertise for the topic and developing appropriate questions for the survey or scripts can also provide useful information. Creating a Thesis Plan and remembering to read and evaluate for relevance, credibility and accuracy are important tasks in the writing process. Assembling all the notes, conversations, documents, articles, recordings etc. together to create a cohesive research document at first appears to be a monumental, but approaching it using the tools available through The Bradford Researcher help to easily facilitate organizing data, by creating a cluster or an old fashion outline. From these tools began to write a rough draft. The writing process continues with the definition, refinement, revision, and review process which can continues through all phases of writing and can include many of these process cycles before producing a final document. I found it surprising that I so thoroughly enjoyed the research and investigative aspects of the process, maybe there is a research career in my future. It is important that we do not simply accept as truth information in newspapers, on television, in magazines, on the web as the whole truth. So much of our lives is out of our control and requires that we obtain as much information as possible in order to form sound judgments, especially when we go to the election booth to vote.

The area that was most difficult for me is the MLA style formatting and MLA style for citing sources. Large data tables available from credible and authentic websites should have been designed more efficiently prior to being inserted into the document. Another area where I experience confusion was the way a website is displayed in a document. In most software programs, when typing web addresses, the program will “correctly format” the address. When I would type a web address, with the <>, http:, //, www, name, @, site name, and domain my software automatically converts the type into a linkable address usually without “<>, http:, and //”, which I think most software does today. The solution may simply be I need to immediately update edition of the MLA Handbook, reread the latest version and if I still have problems, consult an expert.

Other area that I experience difficulty was my personal investment in the topic which could be viewed as biased so I attempted to temper the opposition rather than expressing my true feelings. Objectivity in all writing is necessary as is in my opinion, passion, however too much of anything can exhibit bias in either the pro or con aspect of a topic. Therefore balance is a necessary commodity in writing of any kind. This is an area that is identifiable in the refinement, revision, and review process but should always be monitored as I have a tendency to get carried away.

An area in which I think my writing improved was in linking everything together into a cohesive document; from the opening statement to the conclusion, I feel I was able to tie with the ending sentence of a paragraph to the opening sentence in the following paragraph. Hopefully, my final grade will evidence that I did accomplish all of the outcomes of this course.