In light of our morning discussion regarding blog topics, I did a little research (Okay, it only involved Googling "blog ideas," but, hey, I did it!) and discovered this nice page with a zillion blog ideas. Not necessarily "ideas" as in topics, but "ideas" as in ways to write blogs and use them to your advantage.
And for a more light-hearted approach to "topics," look here.
Showing posts with label topic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label topic. Show all posts
Friday, April 24, 2009
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
My Favorite Paper
Deb asks, "What makes good writing?"
A couple quarters ago, I had the pleasure of taking Lisa Wallace's Intro to Women's Studies course. For our portfolio, we were assigned a three-to-five page paper that reflected upon a topic that we had discussed. The topic was to be one that was personally interesting to us. During the course, we had distributed surveys to gague peoples' reactions to Hillary Clinton running as potentially the first female president of our country. Because we had focused on Clinton and her influence on women today, I chose to write my opinion on the issue.
My paper was an argumentative one. I wrote it before the primary election, when emotions were flying between Clinton and Obama. I made my case for Obama as my candidate of choice, citing that I think Clinton is not necessarily the heroine women today need. I called her out for trying to be too much like a rich white man, and for backpedaling on issues that could actually improve women's lives.
I won't get into specifics here, because politics isn't the point. The point is that I had a fabulous time writing the essay because I was so immersed in the subject. I think that is the one boundary that writers must overcome above all else: You have to find a topic that interests you, that lights a fire under your butt, to produce a great piece. I got an A on the paper and would've been happy with almost any grade, just because I had so much fun writing it.
A couple quarters ago, I had the pleasure of taking Lisa Wallace's Intro to Women's Studies course. For our portfolio, we were assigned a three-to-five page paper that reflected upon a topic that we had discussed. The topic was to be one that was personally interesting to us. During the course, we had distributed surveys to gague peoples' reactions to Hillary Clinton running as potentially the first female president of our country. Because we had focused on Clinton and her influence on women today, I chose to write my opinion on the issue.
My paper was an argumentative one. I wrote it before the primary election, when emotions were flying between Clinton and Obama. I made my case for Obama as my candidate of choice, citing that I think Clinton is not necessarily the heroine women today need. I called her out for trying to be too much like a rich white man, and for backpedaling on issues that could actually improve women's lives.
I won't get into specifics here, because politics isn't the point. The point is that I had a fabulous time writing the essay because I was so immersed in the subject. I think that is the one boundary that writers must overcome above all else: You have to find a topic that interests you, that lights a fire under your butt, to produce a great piece. I got an A on the paper and would've been happy with almost any grade, just because I had so much fun writing it.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Focus Draft
The assignment, due in a week, is a three to five page paper on the effects that factories have on the environment. Tonight I need to write everything I can think of on the topic to sort out later. I call this the "vomit draft", because it reads like a bunch of nonsense vomited out of my brain. So environment...trees, yeah start with trees.
Trees depend in sunlight and clean air to grow, and in turn...
I like grilled cheese sandwiches...with a slice of tomato.
Where did that come from? I am kinda hungry. I'll get an apple to snack on, it'll help me focus better.
Okay, back to paper. Trees provide us many aspects of our daily lives. Everyone knows trees provide wood, but have you ever considered the living beings inside the wood? Birds, squirrels and many different species of insect would have to find new places to live if we started cutting down trees in favor factories. This means squirrels would start making nests in your house and you might have baby squirrels in your cupboards.
Do squirrels build nests? How come I have never seen a baby squirrel? When I was growing up, there was a squirrel in our neighborhood that would come up and eat marshmallows out of your hand. I bet marshmallows weren't healthy for him. Wonder what baby squirrels look like? I'll Google it. No, I have to write this paper.
Factories, while beneficial to communities, are increasingly devastating to the environment. That sounds like a thesis statement. It will go toward the beginning of my paper when I polish this up. I have an important part of my paper written already! I should take a break and check my e-mail.
Two hours later:
As I was logging in to check my e-mail, one of my friends sent me an instant message. I hadn't talked to her in a awhile, and so I chatted and did some research for the paper. Baby squirrels are cute. Learned that not only should I have never fed that squirrel a marshmallow, but it was possibly sick to be coming so close to humans. So after quickly researching rabies I discovered I would be dead by now if I had been infected. Then I got concerned over the nutritional value of marshmallows. After some quick discussion, my friend and i realized neither of us knew what was in a marshmallow. I looked it up, found out it is mostly corn starch and sugar. Disappointing, but not unexpected. However, I did find instructions telling me how to make a marshmallow bra, information that was shared with my friend over IM. Finds such as that must be shared, so I sent out an e-mail to all of my friends. I then responded to a few other messages, and logged off IM as I was getting sleepy.
As I stood up, a piece of paper fell off my desk. My assignment landed on my foot, the typed words glaring at me. Which has led me to sitting here, writing explaining why I have to close out of all open applications, turn the radio off, and begin to focus on my paper.
How often does this happen to you as a writer? Have you found anything to help combat this? Did any of you have a neighborhood pet? Does the destractibility help or harm your writings?
Trees depend in sunlight and clean air to grow, and in turn...
I like grilled cheese sandwiches...with a slice of tomato.
Where did that come from? I am kinda hungry. I'll get an apple to snack on, it'll help me focus better.
Okay, back to paper. Trees provide us many aspects of our daily lives. Everyone knows trees provide wood, but have you ever considered the living beings inside the wood? Birds, squirrels and many different species of insect would have to find new places to live if we started cutting down trees in favor factories. This means squirrels would start making nests in your house and you might have baby squirrels in your cupboards.
Do squirrels build nests? How come I have never seen a baby squirrel? When I was growing up, there was a squirrel in our neighborhood that would come up and eat marshmallows out of your hand. I bet marshmallows weren't healthy for him. Wonder what baby squirrels look like? I'll Google it. No, I have to write this paper.
Factories, while beneficial to communities, are increasingly devastating to the environment. That sounds like a thesis statement. It will go toward the beginning of my paper when I polish this up. I have an important part of my paper written already! I should take a break and check my e-mail.
Two hours later:
As I was logging in to check my e-mail, one of my friends sent me an instant message. I hadn't talked to her in a awhile, and so I chatted and did some research for the paper. Baby squirrels are cute. Learned that not only should I have never fed that squirrel a marshmallow, but it was possibly sick to be coming so close to humans. So after quickly researching rabies I discovered I would be dead by now if I had been infected. Then I got concerned over the nutritional value of marshmallows. After some quick discussion, my friend and i realized neither of us knew what was in a marshmallow. I looked it up, found out it is mostly corn starch and sugar. Disappointing, but not unexpected. However, I did find instructions telling me how to make a marshmallow bra, information that was shared with my friend over IM. Finds such as that must be shared, so I sent out an e-mail to all of my friends. I then responded to a few other messages, and logged off IM as I was getting sleepy.
As I stood up, a piece of paper fell off my desk. My assignment landed on my foot, the typed words glaring at me. Which has led me to sitting here, writing explaining why I have to close out of all open applications, turn the radio off, and begin to focus on my paper.
How often does this happen to you as a writer? Have you found anything to help combat this? Did any of you have a neighborhood pet? Does the destractibility help or harm your writings?
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