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I am in the Christmas spirit! A couple of weeks ago, I went home to hang out with my mom, sister, and some of my aunts while the boys went deer hunting. We went shopping on Saturday, and when we started the day, I was not in a Christmas mood at all. The first place that we went to, however, changed my mood right away. We went to this home decor store; I have never seen so many Christmas decorations in my life! There were ornaments, wall hanging, figurines, place settings, napkin holders, miniature christmas trees... absolutely any decoration you could think of, they had! I bought my boyfriend's mom these cute little blocks that spelled out the word "joy" and a little snowman figurine that holds a tea light to sit on top of one of the blocks. My sister bought a bunch of decorations for her new home (she just got married two months ago). I was so jealous that she has a place of her own to decorate; I can't wait until I get to decorate my own place!
What I have learned about my writing
Well, one thing that I have always known and continued to notice is that I am long-winded when it comes to writing. I almost always go over page limits for papers (although I've done okay with this class). Some of the tips in the Williams book helped me cut down my wordiness and get more to the point. I've also noticed that I have trouble organizing my thoughts in papers. I'd say this semester I've done a lot more pre-writing than I have in the past, and it has really helped. In the past, I used to just jump right in and then after a few pages I would be lost as to what argument I was trying to make or what my thesis was. This class (especially the research paper) has helped me to think about my arguments before actually beginning to write.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Week Eleven
Katy- I don't know if you give partial credit for late blogs (really late), but I figured I'd do it anyway. I forgot last week and then was at my grandma's all weekend... the most electronically deprived environment you can imagine. Needless to say, I had no Internet until tonight.
What I have learned about my research project:
Well, where do I start? First of all, I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of research I found. I had no idea that health literacy was so well studied. While the massive amount of research was really encouraging in terms of my paper, I realized that this also meant limited health literacy is a huge problem for our country. A couple of things I have learned, however, made me feel better about the problem. First of all, I think many health care providers are aware of the problem, and many of them take it upon themselves to do their part in bridging the gap between their own health literacy and that of their patients. I have found numerous articles that surveyed physicians and showed that many physicians typically choose to use easier-to-read information and instructions and simplify their language with patients who they believe to have limited health literacy. This can create problems, however, if a provider incorrectly assesses a patient's literacy, as I will discuss in my paper.
Why am I in college?
I guess for me the answer to that is an obvious question: I want to be a physician, and the only way to get to medical school is to do undergrad first! In my family, it is expected that we continue on with school after high school. My parents are not pushy about it, they just always knew the three of us would continue on, as we are all very motivated. If my brother or sister or I had decided not to continue on, my parents would have accepted that as long as we had a valid plan or goal to pursue instead. I think my mom would be especially supportive of this; she had one year of post-high school education at a tech school to get a degree as an LPN. She is always the first to advocate that some kids aren't cut out for college and would do very well going to a tech to learn a specific trade.
What I have learned about my research project:
Well, where do I start? First of all, I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of research I found. I had no idea that health literacy was so well studied. While the massive amount of research was really encouraging in terms of my paper, I realized that this also meant limited health literacy is a huge problem for our country. A couple of things I have learned, however, made me feel better about the problem. First of all, I think many health care providers are aware of the problem, and many of them take it upon themselves to do their part in bridging the gap between their own health literacy and that of their patients. I have found numerous articles that surveyed physicians and showed that many physicians typically choose to use easier-to-read information and instructions and simplify their language with patients who they believe to have limited health literacy. This can create problems, however, if a provider incorrectly assesses a patient's literacy, as I will discuss in my paper.
Why am I in college?
I guess for me the answer to that is an obvious question: I want to be a physician, and the only way to get to medical school is to do undergrad first! In my family, it is expected that we continue on with school after high school. My parents are not pushy about it, they just always knew the three of us would continue on, as we are all very motivated. If my brother or sister or I had decided not to continue on, my parents would have accepted that as long as we had a valid plan or goal to pursue instead. I think my mom would be especially supportive of this; she had one year of post-high school education at a tech school to get a degree as an LPN. She is always the first to advocate that some kids aren't cut out for college and would do very well going to a tech to learn a specific trade.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Week Ten
Before I start, I thought I should share how irresponsible I am and how awesome my roommate is. I always forget that I have to blog for English, so I usually do them about 10:30 or later on Friday nights. Just now, I was sitting in my living room with my roommate watching tv and out of the blue she yelled, "Blog!" I don't know how the heck she remembered when I can't even remember, but thanks to her I won't lose 20 points this week!
I thought our silence discussion in class this week was really interesting, and it has made me think more about a silencing experience I had. I shared it in class: I had to work in a group for an entire semester with a guy who constantly talked down to me and made me feel like I was not as smart as him. I couldn't stand it. Working with him was so frustrating, because I know I am smart, and that I wouldn't be at this college if I wasn't. I am upset that I let him silence me. What I should have done was stand up for myself and let him know that my contributions to the group were just as important as his. I guess my message is this: don't ever let someone make you think that you aren't smart enough, good enough, or worthy enough. Believe in the quality of your work and ideas, and let others know what you're worth!
I've learned a good deal about my own writing this semester. First, I am always long winded. I don't know if it really is that I have a lot of ideas to get out or if I just can't write things concisely. The Williams' exercises have actually helped me a bit with this. He gives pretty good tips on getting rid of wordiness and getting to the point in a sentence. Another thing I have learned is that I don't have a very good method of organization before I start writing. I tend to just jump right in, without a sound sense of where I'm going with my argument. I don't particularly like using outlines, but I do think I need to develop a method of organizing my thoughts before I start writing. I think the research paper is going to give me a good chance at trying a new organization technique.
I thought our silence discussion in class this week was really interesting, and it has made me think more about a silencing experience I had. I shared it in class: I had to work in a group for an entire semester with a guy who constantly talked down to me and made me feel like I was not as smart as him. I couldn't stand it. Working with him was so frustrating, because I know I am smart, and that I wouldn't be at this college if I wasn't. I am upset that I let him silence me. What I should have done was stand up for myself and let him know that my contributions to the group were just as important as his. I guess my message is this: don't ever let someone make you think that you aren't smart enough, good enough, or worthy enough. Believe in the quality of your work and ideas, and let others know what you're worth!
I've learned a good deal about my own writing this semester. First, I am always long winded. I don't know if it really is that I have a lot of ideas to get out or if I just can't write things concisely. The Williams' exercises have actually helped me a bit with this. He gives pretty good tips on getting rid of wordiness and getting to the point in a sentence. Another thing I have learned is that I don't have a very good method of organization before I start writing. I tend to just jump right in, without a sound sense of where I'm going with my argument. I don't particularly like using outlines, but I do think I need to develop a method of organizing my thoughts before I start writing. I think the research paper is going to give me a good chance at trying a new organization technique.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Week Nine
Halloween
Halloween turned out to be an awesome weekend. I did not go to State Street at all; I don't really like standing shoulder to shoulder with people, paying to look at other peoples costumes and freezing outside when I could be inside at a party. On Saturday night, we had a party at our house. At first there weren't many people there, and I was worried that we wouldn't make back the money we spent on our keg. A lot of people showed up though and we broke even. My boyfriend was down for the weekend. He went as Clark Kent one night (with a superman shirt under his dress clothes), and we have some pretty funny pictures of him pretending to fly. A couple of my guy friends went as seventies tennis players with extremely short shorts. I don't ever want to see so much of their white legs again! All in all, the weekend was a success, and everyone loved my wonderwoman costume!
Argument for paper
I have found a TON of research on the topic of health literacy. Quite a bit of this research seems to correlate with specific diseases, asthma and diabetes, specifically. This would make sense, because both of these are diseases that need to be monitored very closely, on a day to day basis. Understanding the importance of tracking blood glucose levels and keeping tight glycemic control or knowing how to properly monitor lung function as a measure of how well asthma is controlled requires a lot of knowledge about these diseases. It seems obvious that these diseases would appear in literacy research, because the repercussions of not understanding and controlling these diseases are severe. So, I think I am going to focus on these diseases specifically for my paper. My primary argument is going to be that both patients and health care providers are responsible for the correlation of low health literacy with poor health outcomes. I will be arguing for solutions (such as training providers with new communication tools and producing easier-to-follow directions and information for patients) that would help decrease the negative outcomes associated with low health literacy.
Halloween turned out to be an awesome weekend. I did not go to State Street at all; I don't really like standing shoulder to shoulder with people, paying to look at other peoples costumes and freezing outside when I could be inside at a party. On Saturday night, we had a party at our house. At first there weren't many people there, and I was worried that we wouldn't make back the money we spent on our keg. A lot of people showed up though and we broke even. My boyfriend was down for the weekend. He went as Clark Kent one night (with a superman shirt under his dress clothes), and we have some pretty funny pictures of him pretending to fly. A couple of my guy friends went as seventies tennis players with extremely short shorts. I don't ever want to see so much of their white legs again! All in all, the weekend was a success, and everyone loved my wonderwoman costume!
Argument for paper
I have found a TON of research on the topic of health literacy. Quite a bit of this research seems to correlate with specific diseases, asthma and diabetes, specifically. This would make sense, because both of these are diseases that need to be monitored very closely, on a day to day basis. Understanding the importance of tracking blood glucose levels and keeping tight glycemic control or knowing how to properly monitor lung function as a measure of how well asthma is controlled requires a lot of knowledge about these diseases. It seems obvious that these diseases would appear in literacy research, because the repercussions of not understanding and controlling these diseases are severe. So, I think I am going to focus on these diseases specifically for my paper. My primary argument is going to be that both patients and health care providers are responsible for the correlation of low health literacy with poor health outcomes. I will be arguing for solutions (such as training providers with new communication tools and producing easier-to-follow directions and information for patients) that would help decrease the negative outcomes associated with low health literacy.
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