"About us" page & body paragraphs (Nov.18th)
My team's website was brought up in today's class and I was very nervous and panicking. The teacher did say a few good things about our picture and the "about us" page. However, there were quite a few things we needed to change. Mr.Paterson told us that Sayo and I's picture is good because it has a blurry background but Ibuki's picture does not I did not pay any attention to this detail and we were probably only fidgeting with the settings of the camera. It was good that two of our pictures had a blurry background so the picture is focused on our faces. Unfortunately, we are not able to fix Ibuki's picture but I thought that this was very interesting. The quality of the picture, the size of it and how balanced the three pictures do not bother me at all. Being told this by the teacher, I understand how much more professional it looks when all of our pictures are similar regarding the size of the frame, how much our torso is in the frame and etc... From now on when I am in the situation of having to create an "about us" page or simply taking a picture for something professional, I would like to keep these things in mind.
Another mistake we had made regarding the "about us" page is the text and short explanation that goes with each of our names and pictures. I had accidentally written all of the roles that we play in the team. For example, for my part, I accidentally wrote that I am "the mouth" of my team. Thinking back on it now, this is something that only matters to myself and the team and is not information that will help the readers in any way. So, I got rid of that and we were also told that we should introduce more about how we have helped the team and something about ourselves that will make our team more trustworthy and make our statements more persuasive. In my team, I was the one who recommended talking about a school called WAB because of my experience there. Also, I have been to several schools in countries abroad so I wrote about how these experiences changed the way I view the whole concept of a better academic atmosphere. I wrote this in my part of the explanation so that whoever reads the about us and listens to our presentation can trust what we say because I have actually experienced other schools and have a wider view of this concept.
Most of our class was spent on improving our body paragraphs and our introduction. My team had perfected our thesis statement since last class so I was glad that Mr.Paterson said it was not bad. Then, we started talking about our conclusion sentence. The three paragraphs in my section are all very different so I used different types of conclusion sentences for each paragraph. Just like what the teacher had told us, I simply repeated the topic sentence of a paragraph when it was a very understandable statement. However, paragraph 2 and paragraph 3 was about a topic that everyone may not fully be aware of or do not agree with. So in this case, I decided to strongly restate my three reasonings in my conclusion sentence to make my claim more persuasive. Also, I had to tweak my topic sentence as well to fit my conclusion sentence. I added a little more explanation to the topic sentence of my third paragraph because I was talking about WAB and most people probably do not know this school before reading my section. From the next class, Sayo and I have to start working on Ibuki's part and creating a nice flow between the sections to make a smooth extended essay. One of the largest things I learned today was to avoid asking questions as my hook. Last class (I wrote about this in my last blog as well), my team was curious whether or not to have a question as our hook and if personal pronouns were allowed in this situation. It turns out that it is better not to have a question because it is very boring, unprofessional and with just the hook leaves you with a small word limit. He told us that when asking a question, that means we need to write the answer to it which uses many words even if you do not want to waste your words and want to keep it as short as possible. Sayo and I really agreed to what the teacher was saying and instead of wasting a whole sentence, we just took out the question and made a statement at the beginning of our whole essay. There was much to learn from today's class and it was very exciting!!
Notes:
about us, picture and full name is what we have
in the explanation we should write about something that relates to the project, what it's saying about you how it connects to make it more credible
don't write head, heart mouth
people pay more attention at the beginning and end
concluding sentence (repeat the three reasons/points in order to persuade people)
if it is a believable claim, just repeat the claim
which type will I use
p1: just repeat the topic
p2: restate the three reasons
p3: talk about the three reasons
Another mistake we had made regarding the "about us" page is the text and short explanation that goes with each of our names and pictures. I had accidentally written all of the roles that we play in the team. For example, for my part, I accidentally wrote that I am "the mouth" of my team. Thinking back on it now, this is something that only matters to myself and the team and is not information that will help the readers in any way. So, I got rid of that and we were also told that we should introduce more about how we have helped the team and something about ourselves that will make our team more trustworthy and make our statements more persuasive. In my team, I was the one who recommended talking about a school called WAB because of my experience there. Also, I have been to several schools in countries abroad so I wrote about how these experiences changed the way I view the whole concept of a better academic atmosphere. I wrote this in my part of the explanation so that whoever reads the about us and listens to our presentation can trust what we say because I have actually experienced other schools and have a wider view of this concept.
Most of our class was spent on improving our body paragraphs and our introduction. My team had perfected our thesis statement since last class so I was glad that Mr.Paterson said it was not bad. Then, we started talking about our conclusion sentence. The three paragraphs in my section are all very different so I used different types of conclusion sentences for each paragraph. Just like what the teacher had told us, I simply repeated the topic sentence of a paragraph when it was a very understandable statement. However, paragraph 2 and paragraph 3 was about a topic that everyone may not fully be aware of or do not agree with. So in this case, I decided to strongly restate my three reasonings in my conclusion sentence to make my claim more persuasive. Also, I had to tweak my topic sentence as well to fit my conclusion sentence. I added a little more explanation to the topic sentence of my third paragraph because I was talking about WAB and most people probably do not know this school before reading my section. From the next class, Sayo and I have to start working on Ibuki's part and creating a nice flow between the sections to make a smooth extended essay. One of the largest things I learned today was to avoid asking questions as my hook. Last class (I wrote about this in my last blog as well), my team was curious whether or not to have a question as our hook and if personal pronouns were allowed in this situation. It turns out that it is better not to have a question because it is very boring, unprofessional and with just the hook leaves you with a small word limit. He told us that when asking a question, that means we need to write the answer to it which uses many words even if you do not want to waste your words and want to keep it as short as possible. Sayo and I really agreed to what the teacher was saying and instead of wasting a whole sentence, we just took out the question and made a statement at the beginning of our whole essay. There was much to learn from today's class and it was very exciting!!
Notes:
about us, picture and full name is what we have
in the explanation we should write about something that relates to the project, what it's saying about you how it connects to make it more credible
don't write head, heart mouth
people pay more attention at the beginning and end
concluding sentence (repeat the three reasons/points in order to persuade people)
if it is a believable claim, just repeat the claim
which type will I use
p1: just repeat the topic
p2: restate the three reasons
p3: talk about the three reasons
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