Research 101

I think conducting research papers is an important concept because we need to know how to acquire information and develop it into a paper to help support an argument. I remember writing research papers before, but never thought about how beneficial there were for my future. When we don't know something about a topic or have a question nobody can answer, we 'google' it. Google is a main source for research. However, I never used scholarly peer-reviewed articles as my research information. The biggest challenge with scholarly sources is finding a book or article pertaining to your specific topic. I am changing my thesis and now I might need to find another source, which is the most difficult part of the research paper. Relating to the annotated bibliography, I had to do that before in high school and I like it. I think it helps a lot with understanding your source and what the source is going to provide for your paper.

The most important concept I can take away from writing a research paper is understanding what you're researching and what the argument of the scholarly source you use is expressing. Also understanding the information given to you from each scholarly article or book. Using part of a book as one of my sources, I do not have time to read the whole book. Instead I am using only a chapter of the book to help support my argument because I want to use this source. It as information that would be essential to my research paper. I like writing research papers because I think it helps a lot to have evidence from others sources to help support your argument or topic. It is a difficult task to be able to write a research paper correctly and have the right information, but it will help for the future; especially when having to write nursing papers.

The Queen of the Family

The Siegel family is somewhat complicated. Jackie Siegel, the mother, and David Siegel, the father, have a 30 year age difference. They have eight children and live in a mansion in Florida. They were building the biggest house in America...on accident. Throughout the documentary, they interview Jackie, David, the children, Richard Siegel, the nannies/maids, and other people. However, I mainly focused on Jackie because even though she isn't portrayed as intelligent, I think she is the most realistic one during their financial crisis.

If the film was different, of course everyone would act different. Jackie wouldn't have acted the way she did if the housing market crash did not occur in 2008. If this crisis did not occur the film would be different. The family wouldn't have acted the way they did, and people wouldn't have talked about the issues and problems that were being dealt with throughout the documentary. David wouldn't have had to lay people off and he wouldn't be as stressed as he was in the interviewing. Towards the end of the film, David was getting on my nerve; being disrespectful and rude to his family. He didn't tell Jackie about the finances when going through the crisis and he never mentioned anything about the Versailles mansion. Specifically in the film, there is a scene where David states he is a "victim of [his] own success or failures." Basically, David works for a living and he can't separate his business life from his personal life. To me, this scene is very upsetting and it shows because he is never involved in the family during this time period. He is always in his study and during one scene, didn't say "I love you" to his one son. He was being, I think, very disrespectful to Jackie and his selfishness of the company showed. He was hard-headed about his resort companies and kept his family in a financial situation. At one point towards the end Jackie states, "I'm not a stupid person, but when I don't have the information, I look like a stupid person." I love that she said this because it comes to show you how isolated her husband was when dealing with the housing market crash and not allowing any outside opinions to contribute to solving the crisis.      

The Second Time Around

After writing my second college paper, I feel as if I improved to a degree. I went to the writing center which helped me a lot with the flow of my paper and what I should add in to complete my paper.

I enjoyed writing my second paper more than the first paper, because of the feedback I got back from my professor. For my first paper I did not have an appointment with her to talk about my paper. The feedback from two different sources helped me and I felt more confident writing my second paper. I knew exactly what I had to add into my paper and what I was writing about; providing flow with my topic/thesis. Another aspect was that I enjoyed the book. I grabbed my attention and writing about it was somewhat easier. I can't relate to the narrator of the memoir, but I can relate to having a family and the experiences of growing up. I liked writing about the book because it is realistic and it is easier for me to write about topics that are part of people's lives. I focused on family and love in my paper, which is something I can relate to and talk about. The first paper was about education and class, but there was not a back story like The Glass Castle. Even though I can relate to education and class as well, I was more interested in writing about the Walls family and their experiences.

My approach to this paper was similar to my first paper, except that I did not include so much of my opinion. We also had to add in some additional research, which brings in outside source into my paper. I feel as though this was important to get my point across to the reader. I thought more about my opinions in a way that was not portrayed in a first person format. Overall, I enjoyed the memoir and writing about the Walls family and their journey through life.