Entry 9

I have learned so much this semester. I did not have a clue about some of the different formats like APA and MLA, when I started. I quickly learned about them and did my best to apply what I had learned. Of course the main thing that I struggled with was the information I was learning about. MLA is pretty specific and learning how to format it correctly was difficult for me. When I went to high school we only had to complete a bibliography. There was nothing about MLA formats so I found it hard to break my old habits. I do think that throughout the semester I improved on my MLA style and by the last essay I found it was easier for me to do. The easy part of all of this was the actual writing assignments. I find that writing comes fairly easily to me and I enjoy doing it. I think overall I had some great essays, they may not have always been formatted correctly, but they were decent in substance. I also thoroughly enjoyed the theme of this semester. At first I was taken back by the thought of writing about the paranormal, I am a big chicken. I was terrified about having to study one of my phobias. In the end I think I found a balance between what I was comfortable with and what we were asked to do. Overall, I really enjoyed the class and am happy with the work that I turned in. I am almost sad that it has ended, I was just getting the hand of it. It was fun to be able to read the other essays from the class, I found that it was with the pier review that I learned the most. Plus it was really fun to hear what others thought about my work. I also believe that by reading what others have done it helps with my essays. I am really happy I choose to take this class online because it really was not only a part of my general education classes, but it was fun.

Entry 8

I was a little disappointed with the responses to my essay. This time around I only received one response. I will have to say however, that the response I did receive was great. I will make the changes suggested. Some of suggestions were that I did not have a page number listed with my heading, which I flat out forgot and, I need to change the format of my works cited within the text. I was hoping to get more response but I am happy with the one. I hope that the changes I make will improve my grade.

Entry 7

I actually had a lot of trouble with this assignment. My topic was very difficult to find in books. In fact I could not locate any books with information regarding geographical sites that have healing powers. I ended up finding two articles and two books on visualization healing. The articles are very relavent to my topic. They both talk about Stonehenge and it's blue stones and that it is now being called an ancient Lourdes. Which also brings into light Lourdes as a place of healing. My two books are both on imagery healing they have slight relavence to my topic. By being in a place that you can visualize healing you are able to relax feel the energy there and heal. I wish I could have found even more sources and I think I will keep looking. This has proved to be a difficult topic to find in printed text.

Entry 6

I have been thinking about where I can research my topic. I am definitely going to the library but other than that I was trying to think of other places. I have been in touch with a friend who really believes in spiritual healing and she was going to find out the names of several authors who have written about places that have spiritual healing. I am also going to check several search engines to find out what I can there for ideas of other places for research.

Blog #5

I thought that this next assignment would be fantastically easy. Write a persausive paper on a choosen topic. That was until I read the websites on how to write an effective persausive paper. Now the task seems a little bit daunting.
What I have learned from the websites will definitely prove to be helpful. I need to be very specific in my thesis statement. I need to address what I am discussing in the introduction and do so in a captivating way. I also need to consider who my audience is and what there opinions might be. I need to persuade them to agree with my ideas not force them into doing so. I do this by being specific, having sources that are extremely credible and by backing my sources up with specific information. To persuade I must be knowledgeable and use sources that are well respected. I believe that if I stick to what I have learned I will write a great persuasive essay.

Entry 4

When I started this assignment I first thought it would be difficult to revise. I did leave my essay pretty much as I had it. I did change a couple of things. The first thing that I changed was the placement of s couple of commas. This was done from the recommendation of one of my peers. The next thing that I changed was my works cited page. I put it in alphabetical order by the author's name, not by the website. I enjoyed the experience of having other people read my work and critique it. I love getting feedback where I can hear what others are saying and be able to improve what I have written. I was equally as excited to be able to grade my own work. It is hard to be non-partial but I really looked at what I have created and gave my self the grade I thought I deserved.

Entry 3

I really had fun with this assignment. I believe that constructive criticism is that absolute best way to number one find any mistakes that you over looked and to hear what others thought of your work. By "hearing what they have to say and applying all that you find useful, I do believe that it makes a better body of work. On that note I had three responses to my essay. The first was well thought out and had some great things for me to look at. It stated that though my essay introduction was good I needed to consider changing the conclusion. The reader felt as if the conclusion ended with me making a judgement call on whether I believed that telekinesis/ psychokinesis was real. I went over my paper several times and I see where she could have thought that I was leading towards persuasion but I think I will keep the original conclusion. I feel like it wraps up everything that I have covered in the body of the paragraph and leaves the reader with something to think about. The next item to work on is my works cited page. The same reader said that it was not in alphabetical order and that my resources were not indented. Again the indention I think came from me copying and pasting it to the page, as far as the alphabetical order I did look at that and believe that I have made the correct changes. I have been out of school for awhile and learning the MLA format is a whole new thing. Other then those two items there really wasn't a whole lot of substance to look at and consider. Which is flattering that the people who read it enjoyed it and felt that I completed the task at hand correctly, or close to correctly.

Entry 2

www.telekinesis.eu

This site is a European Informational Website. Although there is not a definitive author listed, I do like the website. It is well organized and I found it to be very informative. It really gave a lot of great references to other sources of information, books, scientific papers and online resources all in relation to telekinesis. I would recommend using this site.
www.skepdic.com/kinesis.html

This site lists the author as Robert Todd Carroll. This site is written as an oppositional view towards the act of telekinesis. I think it gives a different and helpful point of view by becoming the "other" side of the argument. I do think that the information given is good but the site seems to be a bit short. Overall I think it is a good site.
paranormal.about.com/od/telekinesispsychokinesis/a/aa031703.htm

This site listed author is Stephen Wagner. This is an extremely short site. The information is limited. There is a basic definition of what telekinesis is and then it moves onto describe three people involved with telekinesis. Then it just short of drops off. Overall I would not recommend this site.
www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/p/pyschokinesis_pk.htm

The author of this site is listed just by their initials. The information provided seems to be informative. The thing that bothers me is that there is only one reference listed. There is a lot of information given in the site and I find it hard to believe that either the author just knew everything or got all of their information from a single source. I think the fact that it only has one source makes it less credible and I would not recommend using the site.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pyschokinesis

This site is well organized. It outlines everything covered on the site and is easy to follow. The information provided seems to be informative and well researched. The list of further sources is really quite large. I think this site is very user friendly and would recommend using it.

Entry 1

I almost fell over when I found out that the theme for this class was to be about the paranormal. I am what you might consider a chicken. I do not watch scary movies, I ventured into one haunted house (which was Waverly Hills), and generally am freaked out by anything to do with the paranormal.
I am hoping to get through this with the least amount of nightmares possible. As apparent by utter disdain for the paranormal, it is safe to say that I do believe in it. I walked unwillingly through Waverly Hills and I have to say that something was not normal. I am however a skeptic when it comes to ESP, channeling, telepathy and phychic abilities. I am hoping to either extinguish my skepticism or solidify it. I am really trying to focus on building upon my writing techniques. I do think that this subject will make for interesting topics and there is plenty of material out there to write about. I do think it will be a great semester and if nothing else a step outside the box of traditional topics.