“Good enough: Getting the writing written and letting it go”

1) In this article I learned that sometimes it is just better to send something rather than not sending anything. Even if your text wouldn't be excellent it is always better to send something. If you don't say anything your voice is never recognized.

2) It was interesting to read the part in which Heidi was discussing the difficulties to start writing. I can relate to that and I felt the same way she was writing. It is not that bad to write when you get started but sometimes it may be really hard to start your writing. Never letting you do "shitty first draft" at first. Always trying to do it well from the beginning and it takes lots of effort to start.

3) I learned that sometimes it is just better to let it go. For example if you are struggling with one paragraph, you don't have to make it perfect but just try to write something and move on. Maybe after a while you have different aspect and you do have better ideas now.

This chapter kind of relates to my own research paper. I want to do it well and I think about every sentences I am writing that if they sound good and are they in a logical order. Every time when I get started with this research paper I am doing a lot and it is not that bad to write it. But sometimes it is just really hard to begin your work.

“Living Sources: Interviews and Surveys”

In this article I learned how to be a good interviewer and how to manage a good survey.
1) First of all, it is really important that you will interview person whose situation relates to your issue. You have to have specific questions for conducting a good interview and you have to be well prepared. The questions should be put in the way that the person you are interviewing could reply in sentences, not only "yes or no".

2) In the survey, you have to organize it well, so you are able to achieve goals you want to receive from your survey. You also have to think carefully who are you making to do the survey.

3) I also learned that it is possible to have "an email interview". In this method you are possible to get an interview with the people all around the world pretty easily. Only thing is that you have to find some "field expert's" name and try to look up for his email address. Then you are able to send him an email and probably get as good answer as you were having live interview.

In my project, I will conduct couple interviews here in ISU with few international students who come from Europe, Asia & Australia. I think I will also send couple emails to my friends who are also international students. I think I could get lot of data from my interviews and this part of project should be more fun.

Learnign from the 1st draft of a Literature review

1) I learned that you can find lot of different aspects on 1 exact issue. There are so many different perspectives, which all have little different view. I learned that it is very important to organize your text properly and it turned out to be quite difficult to put all of my sources together.

2) I think it is important because this part of project brings lot of information about the topic and I can already find some really important thoughts about it. This is the part where you combine your own thoughts together with sources and you can agree/disagree/compare with these resources.

3) My research fits well to my current knowledge. I felt I already knew lots of important issues related to my project before I even started it.

Quoting Activity

Graff(2011) They say I say.


This book shows the ways how to produce an effective argument. It requires not only to summarize what "they say" but by quoting their exact words. While using others' text, you must make sure they are strongly related to your topic. Like Graff states "Be careful not to select quotations just for the sake of demonstrating that you've read the author's work; you need to make sure they support your own argument"(pp. 42). Graff's point is that people should always pay attention if the text you are quoting is appropriate to your own argument. It's unnecessary to quote text which is not supporting your own topic.

Graff is also arguing "Finding relevant quotations is only part of your job; you also need to present them in a way that makes their relevance and meaning clear to your readers"(pp. 44). This statement seems to be important whenever writing a research. It's important that readers see why you are showing this quotation and why is it relevant to your topic. For example if you didn't present the quotations, readers would get confused what is the purpose of these.

"They Say I Say"

While I was reading these two distinct chapters, I realized that these issues are strongly related to my project. These chapters gave me some idea how and when I should use quotations. In chapter 3 "As He Himself Puts It" (1) I learned the idea how make a good argument in the project. It requires  quoting others view of issue in exact words and after it present it in your own words.

(2) Quotations you bring into your text, should support your own argument. So it doesn't leave any unclear thoughts. (3) Quality of quotations is also very important so it makes their relevance and meaning clear to the readers. (4) I learned that good academic writing requires you to put yourself into dialogue with others.

(5) It is extremely important that readers are able to tell when your quotation begins and when it ends. (6) Also readers should be able to tell when you are expressing your own thoughts. That makes good a good academic writing.

Evaluation of Research Questions

My research questions are strongly related to my situation and they really interest me. I want to know more about other international student's life and learn more about it. These topic fascinates me because I am in the same situation and I had lot of difficulties in my beginning. All the questions I raised are directly relevant to my discipline and I feel strong about topic. I have lot of knowledge about issue and I feel that I can make a good research. This topic should offer lot of data and it should be pretty easy to get information.


I m writing from international students and I m trying to find out how they are succeed in U.S. college. I also want to see if they were having some sort of difficulties and if they did I want to see what kind of difficulties? This writing is made for all the people who are interested about international students and their education progress. I want that my readers would learn more about their difficulties  therefore they could be more helpful for the upcoming students. I hope I am going to find some common problem what all the international students are going through and how they are going through it. What are the best ways to get through it. I m going to interview few people who are just beginning their studies as international student and also people who are just about graduate. I also try to get lot of information from library and try to collect some journals and books. 

College Life in ISU

I decided to do my researching project about international students. Few questions about this issue could be

-What difficulties they may have?

- How are they succeed?

- How do they feel while studying abroad?