Reading Task 10: Finishing touches

 

Image by Markus Winkler on Unsplash.com

For this week's reading task we, as a class, collectively worked on our individual sections in the final document to further polish and refine our sections in the document for the final output. The first task for the class was rectifying any outstanding comments from peers on our work from before Easter Break. Fortunately enough I had already reviewed my work and rectified the comments on it before the class but I reviewed it again during the class to take on the new feedback that was given during the class. We were then tasked to add the bibliography to the end of our work which may have been a far more difficult task if I had not kept track of the sources I used for my writing in RefWorks which allowed me to simply export all the sources in the desired referencing format and in alphabetical order and paste it into the document. The last writing task that was set for during the class was for us to write our own personal Author Biographies. This was actually a very interesting piece of writing to do and I decided to use my biography to give personal context for my writing in terms of personal interest and knowledge on the topics in my paragraphs. We were also introduced to and asked to vote on the two book covers which had been designed by fellow student Flosie Sazon over the Easter Break.

Reading Task 09: Peer reviews

 

Image by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash.com

This week's tasks involved creating and receiving peer feedback on our writing pieces. This week's task differed from the previous task as we have completed our introductions and conclusions and thus these reviews encompassed our almost completed products. I find this task very difficult as I feel that it is most helpful for my peers to receive in depth feedback on their work and thus I try to be as in depth with my comments through the entirety of their work. I may be doing a lot more work than is necessary but I do so in hopes that I can help them both personally and help the book as a whole. I also received feedback from my peers and lecturer and have taken it into account and reviewed my own work. I have adjusted my work slightly as a result of the reviews but have also used my own discretion on how I apply the feedback. I also that saw there was general feedback from the lecturer and reviewed my own work to check if I also needed to take it into account. I have found this overall project quite enjoyable/fulfilling actually despite how difficult it has been at times.

Tech Task: Quote Maker

 

I took on this task because I've recently been watching a lot of different shows and comedians, and just a lot of varied media in general recently and I've come across a lot of quotes and sayings that I liked a lot and wanted to visualise one, both for myself and others while experimenting with the new sites. After messing around with a bunch of the different site I ended up using the one from Quozio.com.

Reading 08: Intro, Conclusion and questions

Image by Mark Fletcher-Brown on Unsplash.com

For this week's reading task we were tasked with writing the introduction and conclusion paragraphs for our sections in the book. I went into this week's task expecting it to not be as difficult as the previous writing we have done because it would feel more routine but once I started trying to create the introduction alone, I started to see how difficult this week's task was actually going to be. Unlike the introductions for each the content paragraphs, this introduction served to introduce all five of the previous paragraphs and the overall idea of my section. I found it really difficult to find suitable phrases that were applicable to everything I had already written without directly referencing it, in other words, it was really weird writing a conclusion after I had already written my body content, it was a very unfamiliar process. The same went for the conclusion, as it had already been quite some time since I had read my body paragraphs and was a little hazy on the details. It was also really difficult to succinctly conclude such complex paragraphs in a cohesive and satisfying way. I had to turn to the recommended video on the website for help and it served as a pretty good refresher of what a conclusion paragraph should be. The questions were by far the easiest part of this week's task but they were still quite difficult in their own right. Formulating questions that weren't too easy or hard but still tested a good amount of knowledge from each paragraph was hard and required me to get a full understanding of my paragraphs again that I could then break down to a single, or two, question. I have drafted them out for now and plan to make them interactive for next week's task, hopefully I'll get some inspiration from everyone else.

Reading 07: Peer feedback

 

Image by Adolfo Félix from Unsplash.com

This week's reading task involved us critically reading two of our peers' work and providing constructive feedback for improvement. It was also an exercise of reflecting on our own work as we would receive feedback back from our peers too. I was lucky enough to have my document labelled as exemplary for the last assignment and thus felt that I would be able to provide helpful feedback to my peers, or at least that was my hope. I began the task by reading through both documents and noting any major critiques that jumped out initially, then I used them as comparison pieces to see if there were any similarities or different critiques I could spot. I noted all of this down as quick notes and then left it for a day. I then came back to the documents to see if there was anything I may have missed in the first read through. I then began to structure my feedback in a more digestible way as I felt that my notes were not clear enough. In the lecture we were advised to be clearer and more exact with feedback for it to be more helpful so I created copies of the documents so that I could highlight the feedback that I was given to be more precise. I then sent them off and waited for my feedback back. Luckily enough the feedback I received wasn't too major and I was able to incorporate it well into my writing.

Reading 06: Paragraph Framework

 

Image by Glenn Carstens-Peters from Unsplash.com

This week's task had us writing the paragraph's for the five codified themes that we selected last week. This week's reading tasks proved to be slightly more challenging than I had initially expected but not nearly as difficult as I had found the previous tasks. This week's task was our first 'actual' academic writing task, it that, we actually began writing content for the final paper as opposed to the prep work that we had been doing over the past few weeks, however, all the work that we had completed up to this point really helped in making this task a lot lighter and streamlined the actual content writing process by not needing to go and look for and read absurdly long sources for each paragraph. It also helped a lot that Shaun provided us with a clear framework structure for the paragraph's that was easy to follow and apply, though I found myself needed to adapt it differently at times. It was satisfying to be able to collate the all the work that I had previously completed into more cohesive paragraphs but I did encounter difficulty when it came to topic overlap. Due to all of my sources being selected for one overall topic, with some even referencing others, I found it difficult to separate some of the content into the specific themes without blatant overlap but I think I got around it alright. Overall I found this week's task find and I'm interested in seeing my peer's work next week.

The working document of my Annotated Bibliographies can be found below

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kIdExr3wTsuJPG7_vqhq16mfJYXuLErrlTTSxPtdLF8/edit?usp=sharing

Reading 05: Doing a lot or rereading

Image by Russ Ward on Unsplash.com

This week's task was an extremely nice breather from the heavier reading and writing tasks that we have been doing the past couple weeks though it still did take careful attention to complete. I was not exactly sure about the process of coding writing and linking themes as I began but after following the resources provided on the Multimedia Development Website, especially the resource at https://libguides.jcu.edu.au/py2106/lit-review which presented the process in a far more understandable and simplified way, it became a lot clearer and did not seem very daunting, just intricate. I was unsure how intricate or expansive the task was going to be so I decided to just begin and adapt my approach to any developments. I read through the first bibliography and just began assigning the base highlighter colours to similar topics I found in the first text alone to establish a base colour set for the Key that I would adapt later. As I continued through my bibliographies more and more linked works and topics arose and the colour Key was becoming hard to keep track of mentally thus I decided to write the Key in a note beside my text for reference as I continued through the texts and added additional colours as they came (This Key is included in the document). As I progressed further and further, the Key became slightly more fluid as words and topics covered began to overlap. I then read through the text a second time to cover any connection that I may have missed in the first pass. I then looked at the highlighted texts as a whole to begin filtering themes from the coded content. As I did so I found that I could group similar or adjacent themes to create a more succinct list but still cover most of the coded content and would allow me to write more on the refined themes.

The working document of my Annotated Bibliographies can be found below

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kIdExr3wTsuJPG7_vqhq16mfJYXuLErrlTTSxPtdLF8/edit?usp=sharing