Journal Entry #14

I liked having the peer review time in our class. This allowed us the chance to have someone else read our papers and fix some things that we might not have noticed when we were writing our papers. If I was struggling with the proper way to start the paper, I could ask someone to help me out with that problem.
The more information someone gives back to you is the best way to run the peer reviews workshops. I’ve had some peer reviews in the past where someone will read my paper and only put “good job” on the comments section. What good does that do? It’s like having a golf instructor say “good swing” after every attempt, even though you hook or slice the ball horribly.
Saying that last part, I hope that I have never written “good job” on someone’s paper. More importantly, I hope that if someone puts “good job,” there should be some more written critiques to go along with it.
Peer reviews are a good way for students to learn to be good editors. Someday I’m going to apply what I have learned with the peer review experience when I review my own children’s English papers.

Journal Entry #13

UVSC wants to be a major university someday. Hopefully it won’t be for a very long time. There are a couple of reasons that I mention this about UVSC. Mainly, I’ve been going here for quite some time now. What’s going to happen to me and my grades, gpa, credits…etc when UVSC turns into a university. UVSC has always been (to me anyway) a “come as you are” school. Universities (to me anyway) have always been an “elitist” university.
When UVSC becomes a university, are there going to be some departments that do better than others? Or is this happening already?
I’m not sure what the requirements are for a college to become a university. It looks like there is another building that UVSC is building in what used to be the parking lot. I wonder why they need this building. I’m sitting in a computer lab with more that 60 computers and I’m the only one here.
During regular school hours, there would usually be a class in this lab room that would only have 12 or more students. I couldn’t use a computer in this lab because I’m not enrolled in the class. That means there are 40-50 computers running on energy save that are wasting space. There seems to me to be too much wasted space that happens here at UVSC.

Journal Entry #12

It is interesting to see the different views that everyone has on the topic of corporal punishment. There seems to be a struggle when trying to find the line between discipline and punishment. I find this is an important topic to discuss because I found so many more sources in my investigation for research.
There is no perfect discipline example to follow in our society. So how can we find the right one for ourselves and our family? Which system works best? What might seem like a good system for one family might not be the best system for another family.
I have found numerous magazine articles about child discipline. With so many newspaper and magazine articles out there, it is amazing to me how there is still confusion as to what is proper discipline. Are the authors of these articles experts or are they normal people who want to share what has worked for them?
I think that discipline changes over time. Why has discipline changed over time? That is one question I hope to explore in this next paper.

Journal Entry #11

I’ve decided to write about something that we talked about a few classes periods ago.
I have been in college for a long time now. I probably won’t be done for a very long time. I’ve slowed down considerably because I have a full time job (with overtime) and so I have to go to school part time. I experience the same thing every semester. For example, I’ll get depressed the first week of school. Then I’ll get into the assignments and forget what I was worried about. I was probably worried that I was still in school and I have a long time to go.
It is interesting to see the new kids coming to college every august fresh out of high school. It is kind of refreshing in some aspect, but at the same time, it reminds of how old I am. What has changed over the years is the attitude of the new students. Has high school gotten less academic?
I remember hearing a new girl complain that we had too much homework in one of our classes. “You’re in college” I told her. “This isn’t high school.” She dropped the class and wasn’t there the following class period.
The ability to drop classes because the teacher gives out too much homework boggles my mind. I will admit that I have dropped one class. That was because of technical difficulties because it was an online course, but too much homework, come on, you’re in college. You chose to be here. There is going to be homework no matter what class you take.
This may seem like a rant and maybe it is. I’m just writing about what I see every august when the new kids come to town.

Journal Entry #10

Journal Entry #10
In this journal entry, I’m going to discuss on of the main questions and thoughts that I’ve had about my research paper.
It is interesting to view how the new generation of parents discuss and view the use of disciplining their children. I can understand how some of these parents don’t want to repeat some of the same things that their parents did. I’m one of those parents to some extent. Yet, I think it is somewhat odd that discipline viewed twenty years ago is viewed as child abuse today. What changed?
Is spanking a child viewed as child abuse today? I remember that someone in one of my former classes said that he would never hit or spank his children. He is not married and does not have children, therefore, that statement is easy to make. He went on to say that he would discipline his child through discussion. No one’s perfect, I can fully understand that, but what if you have a hyper child that won’t grasp the concepts that your dishing out to him through discussion?
I think that it is funny how society is telling us how to raise our children. If we don’t think that someone is a good parent, we don’t tell that parent individually, we go and call family services on the parent, and not mention who told on them.
I’m not endorsing abusive behavior by any means. That was not my intention here in this journal. I’m simply saying that we as parents view discipline as how we were raised and brought up. Bottom line: while I might think that I’m a good parent, there will always be someone telling me or thinking that I’m not a good parent.

Journal Entry #9

As I mentioned before, research is something that I do not enjoy. However, I am up for the challenge. There have been a few questions that I have thought about concerning the research paper. Have I chosen a good topic for the research paper? What should I include from the scholarly journals? How do I know when I have enough information?
I am still in the process of forming my questions for the research topic. However, I think that I have a good topic to research about. I went back to the conversation that I had with my friend about disciplining children. (Journal Entry #1)
I would like to view what people have said about discipline in the past and compare it to discipline as it pertains to our day. How has discipline changed over time? Is discipline viewed twenty years ago considered child abuse today? Some of the questions I have thought about for this topic.
The library database has been a big help in filtering out the information that I need for this paper. There are many scholarly journals to choose from. Hopefully I won’t waste too much time finding the right sources that I need.
Another possibility that I thought of was the fact that discipline changes from generation to generation. For example, I don’t want to do some of the same things that my father did. I’m sure that my father said the same thing about his father…etc. Also, from mother to mother…etc.
Hopefully I can narrow this down to five good sources to use for his research paper.

Journal Entry #8

Journal Entry #8

The discussions that we had in the library computer room were very informative. Learning how to do research properly will help me out tremendously when I write my paper #4. I actually don’t like research all the much. This is one of those assignments that will stretch my brain.
I’m looking forward to this assignment, and yet, I’m not looking forward to this assignment. The interlibrary loan system will be most beneficial to me. After the library aid told us about the interlibrary loan, I noticed those packages that night at work. I work at the post office in Provo as a mail handler. The books that were being dispatched that day were from the BYU library.
Our talk about plagiarism today will be helpful when considering what to write about in the research paper. We need to give credit where credit is due. The most important to remember is to document and quote something whenever we use material that someone else has said. Giving a proper works cited page is equally important as well.
Our grammar talk as well will help me out in this paper. The grammar talk will make me more observant when I look back over my paper. Grammar sounds good and proper in our mind, yet we lose something from the brain-computer coordination. The flow of our sentences will be something that I will pay better attention to. Also this concept: don’t use twenty words when five will do just fine.

Journal Entry #7

For this journal entry I have decided to focus on the innovation side from what I wrote about previously in Journal Entry #4. I read an article from the Entrepreneur Magazine.

Innovation Expert Mark Rice: “What you can learn from established companies to inspire innovation in your own company.” By April Y. Pennington
The author talks about Mark Rice and his team. Rice’s team traveled to 12 major league companies and extensively researched how these companies handle recent and new innovation projects.
While the scholarly journal from journal #4 was more geared toward experts, this magazine article was geared toward the general public. There was a more entertaining approach to the writing than in the previous reading. However, some of the questions the author poses from Rice’s findings were still the same. “How do large, established R&D-intensive companies discover, develop and commercialize radical innovations?”
In this article, the author interviews Mark Rice. This is different from the scholarly journal. The scholarly journal just gave the facts and you had to decide for yourself if you think the person was credible. This time, there is actually a conversation between two people and that adds more entertainment.
With the added entertainment, the article was more enjoyable to read than the scholarly journal. Here is a sample from the interview: The use of radical innovation is mention in this magazine article. The author interviews Mark Rice and this is what he had to say about it: “Radical innovation in established companies, whether large or small, tends to go in cycles. When the leadership of the company is focused on operational efficiencies, then the whole focus of the organization is on current operations.” He also mentioned later that while the company is focused on current innovations the leadership is also focused on the future.