Blog #3 BBG Chapter 5

This chapter of the BBG was perfect to read at this time in the semester. As I have been trying to solidify my topics for the first two projects, I noticed it was difficult for me to think of things that I could write about passionately, yet academically. However, reading through this chapter helped me to think of a few different ideas that would all work fairly nicely for project one. Another thing that I appreciated was reading about the “freewrite” strategy that we did last class. I really felt that this activity helped me come up with a foundation for project one, and to read in the text that it is actually a legitimate strategy made me feel like I have made some good progress with my project. Another strategy that I found particularly helpful was the one about researching various sides of an argument and not throwing out ideas that at first glance would be “irrational.” This was very interesting to me because in school we are typically taught to try to prove a point in our writing, not to examine and present various (and possibly ridiculous) opinions. The section of the chapter on research was not particularly as helpful to me as the other parts, but it did give some helpful tips especially in regards to properly using Wikipedia. However, I feel that since high school many students are rigorously taught how to do research so this section was more of a review for me than new information. One thing that I must say in regards to the sources section is that I have always been somewhat overwhelmed and anxious when it comes to citation. Unintentional plagiarism terrifies me, and I always feel like I cite things improperly. Having this section of chapter five available to me will be extremely helpful this semester and in the rest of my high school career because I will be able to go over the basics of creating a bibliography and properly citing sources. Usually, the number of rules and random specifications with giving credit to sources is too much for me to fully process and handle, but this book actually made it a lot easier for me to understand.