About Us
As I continue to go through courses I will attempt to place most of my writings here. I am a journalist and I do a ton of writing anyway but this will allow others to see how I write in a scholastic setting.
Final Drafts
On Communicating and Collaborating
I was hesitant on what topic I should choose for this assignment because I wanted to have something researchable but not necessarily easy. I wanted to challenge my skills and I could have picked a part of domestic violence that I know a lot about and made things for me so much more simple however I decided to pick something many people don’t understand or even think about, how someone who has been abuse, who wants to carry a gun immediately after leaving, might not be the safest idea. I fully understood there was not a lot of local research but used a friends experience to help me better understand the opposing side and I went from there.
I knew I would be challenged to see both sides of the issue. My personal feelings about the woman I picked the topic about could not be of any bearing to the issues she brought forth about the desire to protect herself however I also knew that had I brought her into my research, that would open a personal floodgate of having to deal with someone who still has a lot of trauma to work through. So I used her story from articles, what I know of her story and her fight in legislation to get her side heard. As an advocate who knows multiple women who have been abused, I knew finding someone for the side of why a gun isn’t safe would be easy. Instead I choose another friend of mine who has been through a lot of abuse, stalking and threats against her life before her husband was finally charged and sentenced. What made her more compelling for my issue is that she also agrees that a gun can be more dangerous although she has one and I felt that perspective would be interesting.
What I did not expect was how it would change from feeling as though guns are dangerous because the abuser would have access to them (unless incarcerated) but that women who suffer from PTSD and anxiety are also not mentally sound enough to make rational decisions in using a weapon. This dynamic was not an expected part of my research but evolved as I wrote. It was in talking with Nichole Beverly that the issue of Heather’s unstable mindset make it more dangerous even though you would never get her to agree. It is a matter of perspective based on behaviors she doesn’t yet recognize in herself. Regardless I knew I could make something of this project with their stories and having to really dig up some information. I would have to work for this issue to make sense.
The flash memoir really evolved from the original version to the one I used in the magazine. I added more of a visual perspective of my own abuse to help other fully understand how I related to the issue and to tie in later why I would have the perspective and persuasion points that I did. I enjoyed rewriting this from draft to final to magazine style. I really had not intended on revising my flash memoir but when I went to put it into this magazine as a piece I wanted reviewed (which never happened) I decided to review it myself and really didn’t like the old version. I knew it was going to go to a visual format online and amped it up a bit. The profile was challenging to do any other way but to just write it. Nicole’s story is complicated because it starts with an abusive marriage which turned in to violent threats against her life when she left. After he was convicted and near the end of his five year sentence, he had threatened and vowed he would find a way to kill her and their kids when he got out. There was a lot of red tape involved but ultimately he was convicted of solicitation and is awaiting sentencing. She got a gun because she knew she needed one and she also knew that no piece of paper would protect her. However she very much is a strong, solid and confident person. She is mentally sound and understands why she has a gun and jsut how to use it. With Heather’s bill she wanted passed, she was asking for her to conceal her weapon PRIOR to a concealed carry permit was issued. This would allow others to conceal a weapon without any full scale background (depending on where they purchase it) or any training on how to use a gun and how to protect yourself and others. While Nichole had a gun, she was very against this entire bill and what it would mean in the long run for women who were not fully prepared or emotionally sound to have a gun and how an abuser could also take that gun and kill them with it.
I am a journalist and I write for a living. Our instructor mentioned that I should change genre for one of my assignments so I did that for the persuasive piece. This particula writing assignment was easier to use statistics and photos to persuade my audience rather than just write a piece that could lose their attention. I am also a speaker at Murray High School on toxic relationships and domestic violence and when I show the picture of my last attack that nearly took my life in 2006 I immediately get their attention. I know visuals are a great way to inform and keep them engaged so it was the right time to change it to a powerpoint with slides. I also really wanted this one for the magazine because of the photos and the data collected along with the stories I used. People relate more when they hear someones story. It was a good suggestion to change from writing to go outside of my comfort zone and create something different. I have done a domestic violence slide presentation before and it was very convincing.
Taking my work and adapting it to the magazine was not too difficult. Just enough challenge to rework some of it to make it format and to make it readable. It is really hard for me because I write for publication online. But the content I currently write is nowhere near what I do in English class. That was the challenge. And not wanting to over edit everyone else based on my own writing style. I recognize they do not see the same things and it needs to be conversation style rather than the stiffer breaking news article. This was most definitely the hardest part for me. I picked the three essays I did because they were the ones I felt I did the best on and were “easy reading” for those struggling to understand my issue.
I really learned more about adapting this for what the project was to look like. What we were going for and how to make it more appealing and how all of our work tied together into world social issues. I wanted all our pieces to be worth reading and mine was no exception. I knew I had to make it simple yet understandable and really struggled with length of the profile piece so I added more photos to help alleviate the boredom of reading a long piece. I also recognized I did not need three long pieces. That would just not drawn the readers in like I would have wanted.
Working with a group is challenging, but more challenging when you have head strong people who want to direct the entire process and not let others do their roles. I think our group did not do well at all with roles and that just lead to confusion in the end. While I think we understood our roles our web editor did not understand ours. There was also a lot of confusion on who was to write certain things so instead of delegating, Erin just took over. As we were both editors, but of different processes, I backed up when she took over the website. I really felt she did a lot more work than the rest of us but it seemed as though she did it out of frustration and in a controlling nature. As I cannot spend time arguing with people about things, I let them do what they wanted. It was just easier to get my pieces up on their and move on. I think group work in an online class is even more challenging. But it was made clear that Erin did not want to meet in person for whatever her reason was so we just did it her way.
I will say that the end result still worked out nice but it was because each one of us was responsible for getting our pieces to adapt to the website and make changes to the pieces as we did so. I think we all cared about the way out own parts looked and I think Erin and her husband were super in charge of the design and layout. I did not feel I got to spend any time in my role as no one seemed open to it. I did not get any other review than the one so I just made my own changes. The others seemed to edit each others once it was on the website, which I thought was my role. I did not feel that the one person assigned to review mine was engaged much but I could be wrong as I really did not understand his role either.
Overall it was a great way to see all our work for the semester come together. I loved the way the magazine worked out I just wish our group had been better at working together.
I was hesitant on what topic I should choose for this assignment because I wanted to have something researchable but not necessarily easy. I wanted to challenge my skills and I could have picked a part of domestic violence that I know a lot about and made things for me so much more simple however I decided to pick something many people don’t understand or even think about, how someone who has been abuse, who wants to carry a gun immediately after leaving, might not be the safest idea. I fully understood there was not a lot of local research but used a friends experience to help me better understand the opposing side and I went from there.
I knew I would be challenged to see both sides of the issue. My personal feelings about the woman I picked the topic about could not be of any bearing to the issues she brought forth about the desire to protect herself however I also knew that had I brought her into my research, that would open a personal floodgate of having to deal with someone who still has a lot of trauma to work through. So I used her story from articles, what I know of her story and her fight in legislation to get her side heard. As an advocate who knows multiple women who have been abused, I knew finding someone for the side of why a gun isn’t safe would be easy. Instead I choose another friend of mine who has been through a lot of abuse, stalking and threats against her life before her husband was finally charged and sentenced. What made her more compelling for my issue is that she also agrees that a gun can be more dangerous although she has one and I felt that perspective would be interesting.
What I did not expect was how it would change from feeling as though guns are dangerous because the abuser would have access to them (unless incarcerated) but that women who suffer from PTSD and anxiety are also not mentally sound enough to make rational decisions in using a weapon. This dynamic was not an expected part of my research but evolved as I wrote. It was in talking with Nichole Beverly that the issue of Heather’s unstable mindset make it more dangerous even though you would never get her to agree. It is a matter of perspective based on behaviors she doesn’t yet recognize in herself. Regardless I knew I could make something of this project with their stories and having to really dig up some information. I would have to work for this issue to make sense.
The flash memoir really evolved from the original version to the one I used in the magazine. I added more of a visual perspective of my own abuse to help other fully understand how I related to the issue and to tie in later why I would have the perspective and persuasion points that I did. I enjoyed rewriting this from draft to final to magazine style. I really had not intended on revising my flash memoir but when I went to put it into this magazine as a piece I wanted reviewed (which never happened) I decided to review it myself and really didn’t like the old version. I knew it was going to go to a visual format online and amped it up a bit. The profile was challenging to do any other way but to just write it. Nicole’s story is complicated because it starts with an abusive marriage which turned in to violent threats against her life when she left. After he was convicted and near the end of his five year sentence, he had threatened and vowed he would find a way to kill her and their kids when he got out. There was a lot of red tape involved but ultimately he was convicted of solicitation and is awaiting sentencing. She got a gun because she knew she needed one and she also knew that no piece of paper would protect her. However she very much is a strong, solid and confident person. She is mentally sound and understands why she has a gun and jsut how to use it. With Heather’s bill she wanted passed, she was asking for her to conceal her weapon PRIOR to a concealed carry permit was issued. This would allow others to conceal a weapon without any full scale background (depending on where they purchase it) or any training on how to use a gun and how to protect yourself and others. While Nichole had a gun, she was very against this entire bill and what it would mean in the long run for women who were not fully prepared or emotionally sound to have a gun and how an abuser could also take that gun and kill them with it.
I am a journalist and I write for a living. Our instructor mentioned that I should change genre for one of my assignments so I did that for the persuasive piece. This particula writing assignment was easier to use statistics and photos to persuade my audience rather than just write a piece that could lose their attention. I am also a speaker at Murray High School on toxic relationships and domestic violence and when I show the picture of my last attack that nearly took my life in 2006 I immediately get their attention. I know visuals are a great way to inform and keep them engaged so it was the right time to change it to a powerpoint with slides. I also really wanted this one for the magazine because of the photos and the data collected along with the stories I used. People relate more when they hear someones story. It was a good suggestion to change from writing to go outside of my comfort zone and create something different. I have done a domestic violence slide presentation before and it was very convincing.
Taking my work and adapting it to the magazine was not too difficult. Just enough challenge to rework some of it to make it format and to make it readable. It is really hard for me because I write for publication online. But the content I currently write is nowhere near what I do in English class. That was the challenge. And not wanting to over edit everyone else based on my own writing style. I recognize they do not see the same things and it needs to be conversation style rather than the stiffer breaking news article. This was most definitely the hardest part for me. I picked the three essays I did because they were the ones I felt I did the best on and were “easy reading” for those struggling to understand my issue.
I really learned more about adapting this for what the project was to look like. What we were going for and how to make it more appealing and how all of our work tied together into world social issues. I wanted all our pieces to be worth reading and mine was no exception. I knew I had to make it simple yet understandable and really struggled with length of the profile piece so I added more photos to help alleviate the boredom of reading a long piece. I also recognized I did not need three long pieces. That would just not drawn the readers in like I would have wanted.
Working with a group is challenging, but more challenging when you have head strong people who want to direct the entire process and not let others do their roles. I think our group did not do well at all with roles and that just lead to confusion in the end. While I think we understood our roles our web editor did not understand ours. There was also a lot of confusion on who was to write certain things so instead of delegating, Erin just took over. As we were both editors, but of different processes, I backed up when she took over the website. I really felt she did a lot more work than the rest of us but it seemed as though she did it out of frustration and in a controlling nature. As I cannot spend time arguing with people about things, I let them do what they wanted. It was just easier to get my pieces up on their and move on. I think group work in an online class is even more challenging. But it was made clear that Erin did not want to meet in person for whatever her reason was so we just did it her way.
I will say that the end result still worked out nice but it was because each one of us was responsible for getting our pieces to adapt to the website and make changes to the pieces as we did so. I think we all cared about the way out own parts looked and I think Erin and her husband were super in charge of the design and layout. I did not feel I got to spend any time in my role as no one seemed open to it. I did not get any other review than the one so I just made my own changes. The others seemed to edit each others once it was on the website, which I thought was my role. I did not feel that the one person assigned to review mine was engaged much but I could be wrong as I really did not understand his role either.
Overall it was a great way to see all our work for the semester come together. I loved the way the magazine worked out I just wish our group had been better at working together.