Learning From Past Experiences

Depending on the situation I am in, I can tell whether or not that i have learned from my experiences. It also depends on my state of mind, my mood or how I'm feeling. Because I feel that it is a challenge for anybody to learn from an experience when they are annoyed, angry or just tired. It's best to be cleared minded and focus when you are trying to take what you gained from an experience to heart. Another factor that can determine how much you can get out of an experience is who or what you learn it from. It's a lot easier to accept that you learned something from people who you can tolerate and enjoy being around with versus people who you don't get along with. I mean you can learn from people who you aren't fond of, but you would conceal the fact that the person you dislike actually taught you something. Or you can learn from other people's mistakes, and it's more accepting when you learn a lesson from the person you don't like. Because you witness the person, who you can't stand, slip-up. This may also include people who you don't know. If you see someone mess up, you say to yourself "I'm glad that's not me" or "I'm not doing that". I believe that you can also learn from an experience unknowingly. A great example of this is anything dealing with trial and error. For instances, you are given three different colored boxes. In one of them contains a coin. You go through and open each box, the ones that don't have the coin, you know that you'll have to avoid those colored box. You based your pick on the right box by eliminating the boxes that you have already looked through. Trial and error can also apply to those who are practicing techniques on certain physical exercises. Similar to gymnasts training on their flips and handstands. They repeat the technique until they get a sense of balance and trust for their body. And in no time they are able to perfect their performance.

As for me and how I learn from experiences, well there's a mix of learning from my own experience and learning from others. I can remember learning from other people better than remembering what I learn on my own. Aside from that, whenever I acquire a new skill or idea, my view of the world changes. I believe that in life change in one's self is inevitable. You are who you are through what you experience. So I don't see that it is a concern if learning is transformative or that beliefs may be altered. You learn what feels write to you and if you don't agree you do research until you are right or until you are totally convince of whatever the answer may be. I also think that everyone has a unique way of learning lessons, or that's what everyone wants to believe. Nobody wants to learn a life-changing lesson the same way as another, they want learn it in an exceptional way. And so I judge others of how they learn differently than myself. However, I view that learning involving logic is different. To me logic is step by step and there is usually only one way to arrive to an answer. So yeah, there are somethings that I can talk to others about and somethings that I can't.

A Stereotypical News Article

Martin Robbins' article was pretty amusing to read. I did see some resemblance between Robbins' article and other articles that I have read from my past years. It didn't really resemble any of my articles that I chose for my paper. But I thought for sure that it would have been more similar to my popular article ("How Earthquakes Work") and less like my scholarly one ("Mapping Tectonic Stress Using Earthquakes"). My popular article was more in depth with the information that it gave. And it gave it in a way where it was easy to understand. I mean my popular article did not fluff the ideas of the topic. The tone of "How Earthquakes Work" seem pretty scholarly, because it didn't get off topic and it was straightforward. It differs from "Mapping Tectonic Stress Using Earthquakes" through it's terminology and less complicated examples. The main thing that I have notice between my popular article and the stereotypical layout were the pictures. Robbins wrote "At this point I will include a picture, because our search engine optimization experts have determined that humans are incapable of reading more than 400 words without one", I found it hilarious because it definitely is common for many popular articles to do that. My popular article had, at most, 400 words before every picture or video. But the pictures did help me visualize the devastation that an earthquake can cause. Especially the videos, they give the audience a visual of what the article is explaining.

And there was hardly any citing or quoting within "How Earthquakes Work". They reach their intended audience through a simplification words and short breaks in between every few sentences. It is clear that the audience that the author was aiming for were those who needed quick information on earthquakes, and for those who have an interest and want to know the gist of earthquakes. Overall, I do agree with Robbins statement about the layout of popular articles.

The Scholarly V.S. The Popular

The topic that I have chosen for my second paper is earthquakes. Earthquakes are related to the field of geology which is categorized under natural sciences. I picked this topic because I am already taking geology as a science. It is also one of my potential majors, so I thought that I should do a research paper relating to it to explore my interest. For this project, I am to pick one scholarly article and one popular article. The idea is to compare the two articles, make connections and to point out any key differences. Differences such as audience, formatting style and context.

The content of my scholarly article revolves around statistics and how to determine the location and size of earthquakes using mathematical equations. Since nature is hard to predict, I would say that they are more likely to be calculations than accurate measurements. My reasoning is that this article is embedded with many equations. The equations are pretty constant which shows that they are using certain algorithms to measure earthquakes. Nature has many accounting variables for it to be easy to predict. Aside from formulas, this article includes figures and explanations with complex contexts. The link to my scholarly article that I chose: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&hid=106&sid=495abcfb-af63-4799-87a0-f78f91ab0347%40sessionmgr113
And here is the link to my popular article as well: http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/earthquake5.htm This article is quite different from the scholarly one. I found this article on Google whereas I found the other on a school trusted database. Their formatting is very different from one another. The popular article is more organized and the context is easier to follow. It talks about the basics and leads you into an more in depth study. Basically it is information for people who have no knowledge of earthquakes but have somewhat of an interest in it.

Concerns that I have for typing this paper is my outline. I really don't know how I would start my paper and I need to work on my transitions. Especially if I am going back and forth on my articles. But the first challenge is to get the hang of APA citation, so I must correctly format my title before I can even begin to type my paper. My next concern is to find connections between the two articles. I feel as if they are too completely different to find similarities. My reasoning is that the scholarly article goes way too in depth while the popular article gives its readers many segments and key points on the topic. And I have already mentioned that transitions are not my forte, so putting the paper together would be another major concern. Despite all of these existing problems, I still feel confident that I'll type a great paper. My plan is to introduce each article and to briefly summarize them. Then I would compare the articles in terms of context, formatting, audience and any other dissimilarities that I may find. I would go on with any bits of similarities that they may have, since that could be the weakest part of my paper. And finally end with a conclusion that gives out the key points of my paper. I may have to outline my paper with the information from the articles first. So I can decide which is my strongest identification. I want to type from my strongest point to my weakest. Well that's how I plan on starting, but I'm hoping that Ms. Clark would be available to give out more advise. Well anyway, here I go.

References:

Arnold, R., Townend, J., & Vignaux, T. (2005, November 23). Mapping Tectonic Stress Using Earthquakes. AIP Conference Proceedings, 803(1), 475-482. doi:10.1063/1.2149828. 2, October 2010.

Harris, T. (2001, January 16). How Earthquakes Work. HowStuffWorks.com. http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/natural-disasters/earthquakes.htm 2, October 2010.

Discussion Forum

I did not really participate in the discussion. I only left one comment and it was just a reply to one of my classmate's comment. Mainly because it was a bit confusing at first but once I got used to reading the comment, I could not think much to say. Other than that, the forum did seem useful. In my perspective you could read what others had to say and to either argue or support what you read. It was difficult at first since it was new kind of way to communicate with physically being in class. And the fact that this English 101 class is a hybrid class made it a bit more challenging. At first I was really for the idea, but as the time came I was flustering quite a lot. I had forgotten about it for an instant then came to check online. I felt a bit lost and that I arrived too late, so I felt less motivated to post comments and to reply. My plan was to get on the forum and be one of the first to comment. Then as the wall builds up with comments, I can slowly read all of the posts. So I can stay on top of the subject with each update from my classmates' posts. But I got home late from dinner and as I logged on, there so many comments that were already posted and it was hard to reply to each. Like for an example, how do you reply to a person's reply of another's comment. Eventually I got use to it, but by then I felt that it was too late, and that nobody wanted to continue the discussion anymore.

I am definitely in favor of more discussion forums, but not too many. Just enough for us to get the hang of how to use the forum format. I am also in favor of another one because I want another chance to redeem myself for failing my first one. Even though I commented on someone else's opinion, I felt that my comment was weak and not as complex as my other classmates. I know that I am to blame for not being on time to join my peers on the discussions and that I cannot just make excuses. But I am hoping for another one so that I'll have second chance at it, plus I feel that I'll be better prepared.

And to be honest, I am posting this blog way too late. One of my reason for this is that I've been trying to figure out the right words to explain that I was lost and not motivated enough to read all of those posts. And that's one of the reasons why I didn't like the discussion forums. If there's too much to read, I feel no desire to go through them all to reply to them. I know I must since that is my job as a college student. I must be more dedicated to any work that's given to me. But all and all, I do feel that I am slowly growing into that phase of dedication. I just hope that I don't procrastinate too much.