Well, after two quarters in my Critical Thinking and Writing class, it is officially over. I have learned more in these past 5 months about writing than I have in my entire thirteen years of school.

Source: quicklime.com

While the class may be over, this does not mean that I can just forget everything I have learned. The concepts and writing strategies I learned in CTW are tools that I am going to use for the rest of my life and especially throughout the rest of my years in college.

This quarter, as most of you know, was focused on the research process. I learned all about how to do many different types of research writing. From archival research, to surveys, and to researched arguments, I have learned so many useful ways to conduct research that I can use in the future.  Here is a little recap of the different research concepts I learned.

• BEAM
• Inquiry Based Research
• Hunting and Gathering

All three of these concepts taught me different ways to approach research. BEAM taught me the importance of using sources that provide background, sources that can be interpreted and analyzed, sources that can enhance your argument, and the importance of following methods. BEAM provided me with a way to keep my research organized and precise.

Inquiry Based research taught me the importance of further inquiring into each source you choose to use. It is extremely important to conduct your research in the proper way so that you do not use or interpret the sources in a way that is different than what the original author intended. It is important to ask questions about each one of your sources and make sure you are understanding how the source is meant to be interpreted.

Hunting and Gathering taught me about the importance of both targeting and openly searching for sources in your research. Sometimes it is good to target exactly what you are looking for, but other times it is good to have an open mind and just see what you find without looking for something specific. Hunting and Gathering can really change your research and help you find the best sources to further your argument.

I am so thankful for everything I learned in my CTW classes because I learned so much about researching that I can use in all my future classes, not just english. It is so important to hold on to everything you learn from your college english and writing classes because they are skills that are useful for almost every single subject. My CTW class may be over, but this definitely is not the end of everything I have learned. I have enjoyed learning all that I have in this class and I cannot wait to use it in my future classes. Take everything that i have shared with you and use it to your benefit! Thank you for continuing to read my blogs every week, I hope you learned a lot. Good luck with your college journey!

XOXO, Tess O’Brien

Source: Ferris Bueller

Drum roll please…….

Voilà my official finished project!!!

I know this looks much different than what I gave you a little preview of in my last post, but I decided to make a few changes (well actually a lot). The more I worked on my first draft, the more I didn’t like it. So, I decided to start from scratch and it ended up being the right way to go because I am so happy with how it turned out!

Instead of planning a whole Awareness Day at SCU, I decided it would be much more effective to create something that any University throughout the nation could use and distribute to their students. I came up with this idea of a “Mental Health Guide” so students could learn more about how to promote their own mental wellbeing and even how to spot warning signs in their peers.

I chose to design this as an info-graph to make it easy for people who are walking by to read and understand it without having to spend too much time on it. It was really important for me to make it colorful and bright so that it stands out and draws people in to read it. I strategically chose specific colors to highlight mental health awareness (green) and suicide awareness (teal and purple) to symbolize the importance of the issues. Instead of just including tips, I also wanted to include statistics and red flags so that the students could have a broader understanding of how prevalent mental health issues are and also ways that they can help themselves and this crisis.

I really believe that this would be effective on a college campus and I hope that it could help students to better take care of their mental health and end the stigma of depression and suicide. I was very passionate about this project and I spent a lot of time trying to make sure I included every detail necessary to make it as effective as possible. I hope you all found my finished project to be effective and maybe it even taught you something you didn’t know before! Feel free to share this with your friends at school or get permission from your RA to print it out and hang it up in your dorm! Don’t let this problem get worse, help each other out and promote mental health!

Now that I have finally finished my research paper, my CTW professor has tasked us with one last final assignment: Translate our paper into a multimodal project.

Let’s be real, I bet none of you reading my blog want to read my 9 page research paper (I know I wouldn’t). So, to save you from your misery of reading 2,778 words, I am going to turn my paper into something that my intended audience would actually want to read.

Source: Giphy

After brainstorming for the last couple of days I came up with an idea. I have decided to create a mock itinerary of what would be a Depression and Suicide Awareness Day here at Santa Clara University. Because my research is so focused on mental health issues on college campuses, I felt that it was really important for my multimodal to focus on that audience specially, especially the Students.

By creating a mock itinerary of an event like this on campus, I am able to reach the audience of not only the students, but also the university community as a whole. It was really important for me to come up with an idea that would reach my intended audience and I feel that this idea helps me to accomplish that.

In addition to creating a schedule for the day, I also decided to create a handout that would be passed out to each student at the event. I created a flyer on piktochart.com that really helped me to incorporate the multimodal aspect of this project. Here is a quick preview of what I have going so far

My idea for the handout is to provide each student with a flyer they can hang up in their rooms to give them some helpful times for maintain mental wellness. A reminder like this will help students to be aware and monitor their mental health and provide them with ways to improve and hopefully avoid issues like depression and suicide.

I am so excited to continue to translate my research paper into this multimodal project. I think this is a great way to get the message of my research across to my audience. Let me know if you think this way of translating my paper is a good idea. I would love to hear all of your input!

I officially have one week left of my first year of college. They didn’t lie when they said it goes by fast… I cannot believe it has already been a year. Here are the five most important things my first year taught me

1. You aren’t going to get all A’s like you did in high school, but that’s okay
   

   Source: memes.com

   College is hard and it is meant to challenge you, so don’t beat yourself up when you get your first bad grade on an assignment or test. It is not the end of the world, you can always do better next time. If you are struggling, go into office hours. You would be surprised at how much your professors want to help you to succeed.

2. Don’t wait for friends to magically come to you, you have to make the effort to meet people
   

   Source: mememaker.net

   Everyone is in the same boat as you, you are all starting college not knowing anybody. Make the effort to reach out to people in your classes or someone you meet in the dorm. Eat your meals in the dining hall because you will meet so many more people if you do. Join clubs or other activities on campus, it really makes it easier to meet people and it is great to get involved in campus life.

3. It is okay to not be okay
   

   Source: memegenerator.et

   If you are going through a hard time, whether it is homesickness, depression, anxiety, or even just extreme stress, you are not alone. Go visit your campus counseling center or talk to your RA about it. Sometimes just telling someone what is going on can really help. But know that feeling like this is very common for first-year students and there are probably a lot more people you know feeling the same way, so don’t be embarrassed to ask for help.

4. Step out of your comfort zone every once in a while, you will be surprised at how much you love it
   

   Source: findyourtriessence.com

   It is so easy to stay in your comfort zone for the rest of your life, but if you do, you may never know how much fun you could have if you stepped outside of it for a little bit. Try it at least once. Even if it is something as little as asking your friend in your class to get lunch, you never know what could happen if you push yourself to do something you normally wouldn’t.

5. College is what you make it
   

   Source: theodyssey.com

   You are only going to be in college once, so make the most of it! College really does go by so fast, so soak up every moment and experience you have. It doesn’t matter if you go to a huge university or a small private university, all it depends on is how you make it. If you don’t make an effort to try and enjoy college, then you never will. You can make fun out of any situation and college should be fun!

As I am finally coming to a close on my three months of research on mental health issues amongst college students, I wanted to do a little post to share why I believe depression awareness is so important in college. After researching the correlates of depression in college students and learning about the alarming increase of mental health illness rates, I now realize how urgent it is to spread awareness.

I know there may be a lot of you out there that think you would never have depression or that there is no way one of your friends has ever been depressed, but the truth is, it is a lot more common than you think. The stigma surrounding depression is real and it is time it ends.

Source: CCAA

Many people think that depression is something that you can just snap out of or that the its just an excuse to be lazy. In reality, depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. In order for the person suffering to get better, they have to be treated and if they aren’t, it can get even worse. The problem with the stigma is that its causing students who are showing signs of depression to just brush them off. People are embarrassed to get help because they think that it will make them seem weak or unstable if they are diagnosed with a mental disorder. Unfortunately though, the ones who don’t end up getting treated might end up as the ones who commit suicide later on. This is why it is so important for us to end the stigma and show students that it is okay to not be okay.

If you are suffering from depression or any other mental illness, you are not alone. We need to all come together and support those in our community who are struggling. I truly believe that the only way we can fix this problem is if we all come together and work to promote mental heath and look after our peers. After spending so much time researching this topic, I have become dedicated to spreading awareness. I want to do my part in helping those with mental illnesses because I know what it is like to suffer and I never want anyone to go through it alone.

Source: nfmmc.org

Yesterday, my CTW class spent a day in the library learning how to integrate sources for our research paper. While this may sound like a boring post (I know), I actually learned some really helpful tools for integrating sources into your paper!

Source: The Office

Here are 3 useful tips I learned

1. Always research the periodical your source is coming from. This is really important to do because it can tell you a lot about what type of source it is and the biases they may come with it.
2. Always research the author. It is important to note who the author is and what they do in a research paper. Like the periodical, the author can tell you a lot about the source and how the authors profession or field of study makes the source credible.
3. If the information you discover from tips 1 & 2 are key components to understanding the background of your source, make sure to include that in your research. Sometimes I forget that this background information can actually say a lot about your source and if you do not include it, then the source can be interpreted in a completely different way than the author intended.

I know that integrating sources seems simple, but if you do not do it the correct way, it can completely change the interpretation of your argument. Make sure to always do background research on your sources and insure that you, and the readers of your paper, are aware of exactly what the source had intended you to take away from it. Your research should not stop after locating a source, it is extremely important to continue your research on the article itself.

I know it sounds tedious but I promise it will really help you out in the long run!

Back at the beginning of the quarter when I was starting to brainstorm what I should choose as a topic for my research paper, I wanted to choose a topic that meant something to me. Rather than just choosing something random to focus on for 3 months, I wanted to choose something that I could actually relate to and would be devoted to for the whole quarter. As most of you know, I ultimately chose to focus my research on mental health of college students however, you probably do not know why.

During my sophomore and junior years of high school, I struggled with depression. I was in a very dark place in my life and I was trying to hide and avoid the fact that I was suffering from a mental illness. After two long years of trying to fight it, with help from my family and friends, I was finally able to overcome this dark time in my life.

However, a few months after starting college this year, I felt the depression creeping back up on me. Once again, I tried to avoid it and pretend like I was fine, but the truth was, I needed help more than I ever did before. After about 6 months of the depression getting worse and worse, I finally got the courage to receive professional help. While I am still struggling, I am getting better each day and to my surprise, this research paper actually helped me to get through it.

My own personal experience inspired me to choose this topic for my research. It was so important to me to choose this because I knew that I wasn’t the only college student who has struggled with mental health issues. I really wanted to research more about this and find out why this is happening to not only myself, but so many other college students throughout the world. I wanted to find out how to stop this issue from affecting more students. The most important thing I wanted to accomplish was to educate myself through this research so that I could better understand the issue and use my knowledge to help others in advocating mental health on college campuses.

I know that through this research I am not going to make the problem go away, but I hope that it will give me the chance to educate, in the very least, one person on how important this issue is. Even if I only get through to a few people, I hope to make a difference in at least one student’s life so that they can prevent themselves from ever having to struggle with a mental health illness.

As I continue to gather sources for my research project on depression in college students, I am finding a gap in what I have gathered so far. While I have found some significant sources, I am noticing that many of these sources are only from psychologists, professors, or doctors. I do not have anything from college students themselves which is a major problem for my research… I have to find a way to fill this gap ASAP

I started to brainstorm yesterday and I decided to look up “college depression from the perspective of college students” on google. I hit the jackpot!

I found articles that were posted on twitter to help college students struggling with depression and I even found an article on buzzfeed.com titled “13 Powerful Stories About College Students Living With Depression”. This article was exactly what I needed to help me feel this gap in my research. It was really important for me to find sources from the perspective of college students because I don’t want my research to be only statistics and opinions from adults and experts in this field. I want to hear what it’s like for the students who actually suffer from mental illness because sometimes even the experts don’t know what it is really like for a college student today to live with a mental illness.

As far as establishing territory goes, I feel pretty confident with the sources I have collected so far. Since the majority of my sources are studies on depression and mental illness in college students, I have a lot of background I can use from these. I am nowhere near done collecting sources, however, now that I have established the gap, it will be much easier for me to find sources that can all contribute to the conversation.

I will keep you all updated on my research and let you know what I find!

In my CTW class we had to read an article titled “Helping Students Use Textual Sources Persuasively” written by Margaret Kantz. The article discusses Kinneavy’s rhetorical triangle. This rhetorical triangle consists the Encoder, Decoder, and Reality. The Encoder is the speaker/writer (ethos), the Decoder is the audience/reader (pathos), and Reality is the topic or content (logos).

Kantz talks about the need for students to use this rhetorical triangle in creating researched arguments. In the article, she creates the example of a student named Shirley who, like many students, misunderstands and misuses sources. Kantz lists three common causes that give students difficulty in creating an original argument.

1. Many students misunderstand sources because they read them as stories.
2. Many students expect their sources to tell the truth.
3. Many students do not understand that facts are a kind of claim that can be used persuasively to create an impression.

Source: Parks and Recreation

Basically what Kantz is trying to say is that students like Shirley only know how to learn the content and find the main idea of a source which only allows them to agree or disagree. This is not enough to create a persuasive argument. Kantz believes that Shirley needs to develop a technique that allows her to say more than just agree or disagree. She needs to find a technique that will help her develop more complex understandings and representations of the text so that she can analyze and build her own original argument.

In the past, I have been a lot like Shirley. I often just restate or summarize a source rather than adding to the conversation and complicating the argument. However, after reading this article, I realize how important it is, when writing a research paper, to do more than just agree or disagree with a source. It is so important to understand the context of the sources you are reading. Kantz discusses ways for students to overcome this issues. For example, when you are reading, you should be asking yourself questions like “who is the author?”, “who is the authors intended audience?”, and “what are you saying to help me with the problem you assume I have?”. These questions will help you to better understand the source you are reading so that later on you can better analyze and then compose your argument.

What I got of this article that I think is very helpful is that when writing an argument paper, sources are meant to analyzed in a way that adds to and complicates your argument. Sources are not just meant to be summarized. As I soon begin my researched argument paper, I am going to make sure that I do not make this mistake. The most important thing to do when reading and analyzing a source is to ask yourself those questions that help you understand the role of the Encoder, Decoder, and Reality so that you can fully understand the intentions of the source.

It may seem like a lot, but if you do this your paper will be amazing!

A few days ago, I learned how to use the databases in my university’s library. If you are like me, the only database you know how to use is Google (sad, I know). But, thanks to the librarian and the “Distinguishing Different Types of Articles” tutorial, I learned all about how to navigate the databases for my future research paper.

I had no idea how many databases there are to choose from. Libraries subscribe to thousands of databases that give access to millions of books, articles, studies, magazines, and almost any piece of writing you could think of. There are thousands of databases out there and each one is different. At the SCU library, there are databases that focus on science, psychology, education, law, philosophy; I could go on but basically there is a database for every single subject. Trust me, you won’t have a hard time finding a database that fits your research.

Source: quickmeme.com

After learning all the techniques for the best way to search a specific topic in a database, I decided to try it out for my own research.

I chose to use the database OmniFile because it specializes in topics like education and social science which is exactly what I need for researching about mental health in college students. I began my research by searching the phrase ” depression* AND college* AND student* ” and to my surprise there were 1,631 results! The first source that came up was a scholarly journal titled “Correlates of Depression in First-Year College Students”. This was exactly what I was looking to find.

My goal when I started the process of locating an article was to find something that discussed what could possibly be causing depression and mental health issues in college students. The article I found was a study that identified and ranked the personal, academic, and social correlates of depression in first-year college students. Before I even started researching, I was really interested in what factors could be putting college students at a higher risk for mental illness. This study answered that for me and I was so excited that I found exactly what I was looking for.

One stumbling block I faced though, was that I could not find any information on the authors. Because this was a Canadian article I could not find any information on google. Luckily, I remembered what the tutorial taught me. Because this is a scholarly journal, it means that the authors are all usually professors who conducted a study and are sharing the results. After remembering this, I was able to find out that the authors were all professors at different universities in Québec.

Locating articles is not the easiest thing in the world, but it is very rewarding when you locate exactly what you were looking for. But one tip, have an open mind when looking for sources! You might be surprised at what you find when you are open to sources that weren’t exactly what you were looking for. Good luck!