Magazine Reflection Take Three(3)

During this magazine project, I learned a lot of information about how to make my writing more interesting. I learned this technique through critiques and my teacher's advice. Some of these new ideas included making concerts and not pancakes and using the structural loop. I tend to use a lot of the same techniques like "ing's" words and "to be" verbs. So when I went back to make my writing better, I used better action verbs that would grab the reader's attention and make them want to read more. It was hard at first to figure out what to write about but as I looked back at my experiance I realized what subject was not too general to write about. This magazine experiance helped me get out of my comfort zone of just writing the basic things I did at internship. I actually talked about the reasons why I would never continue in the path of just working in a cubicle all day figuring out information about health and physical activity. It was more of a learning experiance than it was a junior class requirement.

Magazine Reflection Take Two(2)!

Think about the following things that we worked on in this project:

* Structuring writing (the loop; into, through & beyond)

* Intros

* Conclusions (or outro's)

* Incorporating evidence

* Sentence structure

* How to use nouns and verbs effectively (where in the sentence, what types, -ing's, etc.)

* Making your writing a concert, not a pancakes.

* Avoiding sledgehammer words

* Writing about more than the specific topic at hand (how to get deep)

* Using various types of evidence

* Copy editing

* I think there's more--what did I forget???

1. Overall, when you think about the big picture of your writing, what improved? How did it get better? Why?

When I think of the big picture of my writing, the way my writing has improved is through critiques. Without critiques from both my teacher and classmates, I would've had a long interview that had no meaning in the overall magazine at all. I changed my end product to an unmeaningful piece of writing to a type of writing that is helpful to those who have not done internship as well as giving those a taste of what I learned personally as an "adult" in the real world. Another factor of my writing that changed to make it a better more enjoyable piece of writing was word choice. Before this writing exercise, my thinking was, "The Longer the Better." But I slowly learned that with less words that are straightforward and to the point, the paper becomes more interesting and understandable to read.

2. Overall, when you think about the big picture of your writing, what still needs work? What do you think will help you improve? Why?

When I think about the big picture of my writing, I think that there's always room for correction. In my article, specifically expansion. I think that I could've gone more into depth about the internship site in general and then gotten more specific as I was explaining what I did personally. The reason for this is because I think the audience would've had a clearer illustration of where I interned.

3. Specifically, show us something that improved and describe the path it took to get better. You can quote your article, your drafts, link to evidence, etc.

In the first paragraph of my article, there was a section where I started off saying, "During the last three and half months of intership I feel like a child who has been transformed from afults having to deal with my problems, to being in charge of everything from time management to working with people I have never met in my life." Then it changed to, "Internship reveals to individuals how to continue in a path to their future career, but mine was the total opposite." I went from a section that used meaningless words that eventually lost the audience's attention by the time they got to the end, to short, simple, and to the point.

4. Describe something specific (or a few things!) that you learned about writing.

I learned that it is very important to start off with a concert rather than a pancake. Usually my writing starts off interesting and then starts going downhill as I get closer to the end. In order to keep it a concert every word has to count and people have to leave with the feeling of wanting more detail than just what the surface gives them.

Magazine Reflection:the beginning

1. What went well for you during the process of creating this magazine?

During the process of creating this magazine I felt that the summary of my internship was well-developed and showed the readers what I felt. I hope that at the same time up-coming interns will know what to expect.

2. What challenges did you face as you moved from an early draft or idea to a final product?

Coming up with what my page for the layout should look was difficult at first but as we went forward with critiques, I was able to make it look decent.


3. What other examples of work—student and professional—stood out as exemplary and served as a good model for your own work?

The National Geographic layout was the layout that stood out to me as simple but still professional. It was the layout my group and I took ideas from. It's a magazine that is easy to follow as well as understand BECAUSE of its simplicity.