Annoying Ways People Use Sources

"Annoying Ways People Use Sources" was another very helpful and relevant read. Citing sources correctly can make or break the validity of an argument, and is often something that does not get enough credit and attention. I understand MLA much better than APA, so when citing something in APA format, it often takes me much more time and energy to do it correctly. I also found it helpful that this reading shed light on the importance of transitions when quoting something. Even if the quote is incredibly effective and relevant, it loses its impact when there is not introduction or explanation after. It also makes it feel as if the writer does not care, and that makes the reader want to stop reading. Bad cycle! These are two things I know will benefit my paper if done correctly so my next draft will focus on working through the kinks in these areas.

I am sure I will refer back to this reading at least a couple more times when sprucing up my draft, as I have a lot more quotes to add and citations to make.

Second Shitty Draft

This draft still needs lots of work and some sources... but here is what I have for now!

While inspiring others, and still having time to meal prep every week, Lauren Bragg gracefully (and humorously) changes the lives of middle-aged women every day. Growing up, she always loved to cook and help others; but never in her life would she think these two would combine into something amazing and life changing. What began with just jotting down recipes and handing them out to her work out partners led her to posting them online for others to see, along with a weekly email and awesome helpful blog updates. This passion overcame her desk job, and then began to consume her life in a positive way. When asking Lauren how she was able to do this with the competition of so many other health and wellness coaches, her answer was simple, “by being my best, authentic self”. Although writing did not come easy to Lauren, she found she did her best work when being truly authentic to herself and what she wanted to discuss. Because of her authenticity, her audience formed in a way that worked harmoniously with her business.

After graduating college, Lauren had a well-paid office job where she was essentially a secretary. Her day consisted of writing and replying to emails in which she had no personal connection with the person on the other end. Although she was making good money, she soon realized she was not getting my personal satisfaction from sending emails. During this time, she would decompress by working out at the gym. Her gym buddies became good friends and after small talk turned into every day conversation, they started to realize she had a serious talent in the kitchen. This inspired Lauren to start writing down her recipes and soon after, bring them with her to give to her gym friends. What started as jotting down ingredients led to her creating her first blog, “Simply Paleo”, of all of her paleo recipes. This was a huge hit. She was able to attract people locally as well as across the country with her unique, quick and easy, and healthy recipes. Once Simply Paleo became a large success, she then decided to take things one-step further. How could she continue to promote healthy eating while also providing the foundations for a health mind body and spirit as well? Becoming a certified health and wellness coach was the first step. Once she had this certificate, she was able to show future clients her credibility, and constructed a helpful and effective program. This was the beginning of Wellness Vixen, a six-week program that inspires women to become the best version of themselves. This program is what cultivated Lauren’s creativity and brought a level of self-satisfaction she did not know was even possible. Although much of what Lauren does is in her writing and the messages she is giving to younger women, she does not consider herself a “writer”. Her approach to writing well and making it effective is solely authenticity. She finds she cannot even get her words across when she is not being authentic to herself and her thoughts. In order to help inspire other women, she feels she has to be honest and true to herself. With this being said, her blog is the most informational area of her business.

When scanning Lauren’s blog, the viewer can further understand what her business is about, just by reading some simple, well-constructed sentences on the first page. Lauren’s target audience are busy moms or middle aged women who do not have a ton of time to sit down and read every day. With this, she makes her bullet points simple and to the point, as well as light and humorous. When asking Lauren about how she gained her audience, she stated that she first had to figure out how she wanted to go about helping others and what that looked like to a busy, working women. Once she did this, her audience essentially came to her. Wellness Vixen blog is a very accurate depiction of the life that Lauren lives every day. For example, she states,

Heya Gorgeous! My name is Lauren.  I’m a board certified Health and Wellness Coach with over 5 years of experience guiding women in cultivating the most vibrant version of themselves.  I can help you heal your body and your relationship with the mirror so you can truly live like a Vixen.  Stop trying to accomplish your goals alone, let’s elevate your life together!

This shows her ability to not only clearly state her purpose, but also show her creative side. After meeting with Lauren and then reading through her blog, I feel all of what is writing is so authentic, and can hear her saying it when I read!

            After Lauren had figured out her target audience, she constructed a muse. Her muse was the exact person she felt was a good fit for her program. For example, busy, working, and needs time for herself without bearing her struggles alone. This helped when Lauren felt stuck on something, or did not know if she should say/write a post a certain way. When this happened, she would think to herself, would her muse be offended? Would her muse find it helpful after a long, busy day? By doing this, she was able to strip down what she was saying and it creating more effective and note worthy posts.

            Throughout the interview, Lauren cussed a couple times, which was not to my surprise. This sparked my curiosity though in wondering if she cussed to her vixens. Language is a very important concept, and can be taken offensively if not implied correctly. She stated that even cussing was something she continued to do (when she felt it appropriate) as it kept her authentic and human. She looked at it as more of a social expression and a way to get out feelings and emotions, rather than something of harm. I felt this was very powerful as so many words have negative connotations, yet it is all about the implications behind why they are being said. It is not the word; it is the emotion and drive behind it.

            Although Lauren does not consider herself a writer, and does not even enjoy writing much, she is able to create a blog with beautiful key points and expressive language. This comes from authenticity and pure passion for what she is speaking about. When she is able to think of writing blog posts and emails in those terms, she doesn’t even feel like she is writing. Through her unique and eloquent posts, she attracts her target audience by keeping things personal and helpful. By having the best audience, she is able to create her best work.

Very, very shitty first draft

Here is my VERY shitty first draft somewhat combined with an outline :))))

Intro:

 While inspiring others, and still having time to meal prep every week, Lauren Bragg gracefully (and humorously) changes the lives of middle-aged women every day. Growing up, she always loved to cook and help others; but never in her life would she think these two would combine into something amazing and life changing. What began with just jotting down recipes and handing them out to her work out partners led her to posting them online for others to see, along with a weekly email and awesome helpful blog updates. This passion overcame her desk job, and then began to consume her life in a positive way. When asking Lauren how she was able to do this with the competition of so many other health and wellness coaches, her answer was simple, “by being my best, authentic self”. Although writing did not come easy to Lauren, she found she did her best work when being truly authentic to herself and what she wanted to discuss. Because of her authenticity, her audience became the people she wanted to reach out to and had to most respect for her business.

Body Paragraph 1:

Here I am going to discuss Laurens office job and how she would write emails to clients for her boss. In this case she would be more consoling and sweet to those who needed it and more brute and honest to those who just needed an answer. She was able to gage her audience so well even through email. This is what led her into being a health and wellness coach, because a woman recognized what she was so good at and Lauren was sick of having a 9-5-office job.

Body Paragraph 2:

Here I will discuss the importance of authenticity. Lauren felt that her audience came after being her most authentic self and I found that to be very important in her career story. She was not able to write well, or really at all when she felt that she wasn’t being authentic to herself. That is when she decided to stop trying to promote her business to those who would not take her for who she is. When she opened up and said how she felt she was able to attract the audience she wanted in the first place.

I will also discuss examples form the readings here.

Body Paragraph 3:

Here I will discuss having an audience. For Lauren, her audience was most important, as these were the women she was writing for every day. As I stated above, her audience did not form until she was authentic to herself. Once she opened up, she found that others did as well, as they were looking up to her. She also constructed a virtual middle-aged woman, who was the perfect image of her who she wanted her client to be. When she became stuck on wondering if she wanted to write about something, or if it was okay to, she would just write in regards to that “fake” woman.

Here I will also include examples from the reading.

Conclusion:

Tie in all main points and how this helped Lauren in becoming her best self through her business.

So What? Who Cares?

Once again another great chapter that correlates well with our assignments, woo! Arguable Assertions gave great (and funny) examples of how important it is to be able to back up your argument, before stating it. I liked how they discussed that a good argument is like a good conversation, as it is useful to state more than one side. This was a good reminder for me as I feel I tend to get caught in the heat of the moment, and forget there are at least two sides to every argument! Listeners (and readers) often are more inclined to read something that is not solely one sided. Addressing the other side of the argument shows that you have done you research and understand there is another point of view besides your own. With this being said, evidence is extremely important. Arguments are essentially meaningless without any form of evidence to back them up. In our final paper, evidence will come mostly from our interview and artifacts we gained from research. This will help immensely in creating a beautiful final draft.

So what? Who cares? Was a very helpful read. Even just the name itself was helpful as it made me think back to my own writing and ask those questions. I loved that they gave templates and examples on how we can change our words around to answer the so what, who cares. By paying attention to this, especially when arguing for something, statements become more valid and readers will find more incentive to keep reading. Also, by doing this, it is clear proper research has been done and is being backed up.

When thinking of my thesis statements, this last reading helped me a lot. Thesis statements are the selling point of an introduction and I do not want readers to think so what? And who cares? I am still in the works of developing an impactful and concise thesis statement, and will post here when I am done!

How to Read Like a Writer

I really find it effective that our readings have correlated so well with assignments that have been due. I started with the reading on research thinking I would already know much of what would be discussed, as I have written numerous research papers before. Much to my surprise, this was very incorrect. Prior to the reading, I did not realize how many important steps there were when researching something and how this can change the effectiveness of a paper. For example, before even conducting an interview, it is important to create a narrow enough topic, develop clear and powerful research based questions, and then find the correct person to interview, based on your genre. Interviews are not something I know much about, so it was helpful to learn how to break down what a good interview was composed of.  I feel it is hard to know right off the bat how an interview will go, so follow up questions are very important. The reading suggested printing out a transcription of the interview after, and highlighting the important areas which is something I would have never though to do, but I’m sure will help with the outcome of my final paper. Not every answer is going to be important, so it is good to be able to factor out the unnecessary ones.  Overall, I will probably resort back to this ready 100 more times before completing my final paper – very helpful!!!

Reading is something I usually do in order to wind down after a long day. Unless I am reading for school, I do not put much thought into dissecting what it is I am reading. How to Read Like a Writer gave me a whole new way of thinking about any sort of reading. Every piece of writing has a purpose, and is directed for a certain audience. Whether the reader sits down and actually thinks about these factors or not, they are always there. Language is a huge dynamic in writing, for example, formal or informal? In depth or brief? When outside distractions actually forced me to read each sentence thoroughly more than once, it made me really realize the effort that goes into every form of writing – even just a magazine article. By learning to “read like a writer”, I found it changes the way I absorb the information and is much more effective when understanding the foundations of the reading.

Interview Questions

Interview Questions:

-       Did you have to obtain a certain degree to start your own business?

-       What steps did you have to go through to gain your credibility?

-       Was it a lot of work?

-       How did it prepare you for starting your own business?

-       When creating your blog, how much did you focus on appealing to your audience?

-       What did you discover that worked for you?

-       What did you discover that did not work for you?

-       How many times did you edit/change the overall appearance of it?

-       What have you learned about affective writing?

-       How has Facebook helped in reaching out to future clients?

-       Do you feel social media can have a positive influence when used correctly?

-       You work with women who are trying to overall better their lives, what words and terms of endearment have you found to be most affective?

-       How do you use them while still sounding authentic?

-       Being a health and wellness coach has become a more popular career recently, what have you done to make your business different from others?

-       How has this helped you when gaining more clients?

-       How big of a role does writing play in your every day workload?