I chose the Science News article  “How Coronavirus Stress May Scramble Our Brains”. I chose this article over the others because I felt that I could relate to this article much more. Before the pandemic I already had to deal with a lot of stress. I take care of all my siblings while my parents can’t. I relied on working a lot. Once I lost my job in the beginning of the pandemic, the stress piled on. The stress of not working, the stress of figuring out what to do with my siblings, the stress of what happens if I get the virus. I genuinely feel like having so much stress hit me like that at one time has turned my brain into permanent mush. I really do feel like the stress of everything that happened during this pandemic caused many people’s brains to be a different way. The author used im guessing interviews with psychologists, brain experts etc to show how the stress from the pandemic affected our brains. In the article, there was an image showing how the brain functions when people are stressed and when they aren’t. When we’re stressed, we have a weaker control of our thoughts, emotions and how we act. I would say this article is an informative text and I definitely gravitate towards that because it’s much simpler for me to understand and break down. It’s very difficult for me to write and analyze writings that kind of speak from someone’s experiences because it’s usually easier when you can understand where they’re coming from and a lot of times I can’t pick up on it.

Reflective writing is when someone basically thinks before they write. Whatever the person wrote was well thought out, they put a lot of time into their writing. I do reflective writing a lot but never realized it until this course. I overanalyze and take time about what topic would fit in one place, how long it should be, should it be a leading point or an ending point, everything. In a way, reflective writing pushes you to really write your best work. It helps organize your thoughts and organize it a certain way. When writing, I always start off with an outline of some kind so that I can organize and see all my thoughts in one place. I then organize it by importance. For example, with the Discourse Communities assignment I wrote about my community Brooklyn. In my head I already knew I would have to present the problem and then suggest a solution. Once I identified the problem, I formed my solution. However, in order for someone to really feel the severity of an issue to even want to help with a solution, some personal flair needs to be added. I left the ending paragraphs to talk about personal experiences and tie it into why not having the solution at that time was a negative thing. After that, I added a few words anyone can relate to. Not just people in my city, not just minorities but anyone who needed something done and couldn’t have it done. This was probably one of my favorite pieces that I wrote because it hit so close to home and I was finally able to use things I go through to maybe make someone not feel so alone or finally feel like their community isn’t the only one going through it.

“Besides feeling like I haven’t had an actual routine since March 2020, there have been some positive outcomes since this pandemic quarantine started. I believe the months of being indoors has allowed me to bring out my creative side. Prior to the outbreak, I really felt like I had no creativity. I felt this especially when it was time to write college essays. College essays usually ask you to talk about great achievements and things you have done that are out of the ordinary. I did no extracurricular activities long enough to be able to mention them in my essays. Most kids were able to talk about the sports they were in, the songs they made, and what dance they performed in. Although my school was a performing arts school, I was not as creative as one should be in an art school. My school did make freshmen try out all the majors before they made a decision. I chose art out of music, dance, and drama because art was the only major that did not need to perform. It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in the other majors, it was the fear of not bringing the same creativity to the table, as the other kids did. I always limited myself to what I could explore and that is the reason I didn’t join the softball team like I wanted to, or join the school play, or I could have picked to be a music major, which is what I actually wanted. I also had no clue of what I wanted to do in myself and had no hobbies. Looking back and knowing that my high school experience was cut short, I wished I realized how much creativity I actually had. A year later and I now know I have found out a lot about myself that I might have not found if I wasn’t trapped in my room for months.
One way my creativity branched out is throughout high school as an art major we would have to submit a weekly sketchbook of three random objects we picked at the beginning of the year. I hated this assignment because for all three years I was never able to draw realistic still-life drawings which was the assignment. Also with the amount of school work I had, I usually rushed the drawings. Having this extra time and wanting to step out of the three objects sketch, I decided to paint something that I wanted instead of following what the assignment was. I already had a great connection with the teacher. I believed that she would rather enjoy seeing me finally showing my artistic creativity than the same boring drawings I would give her for years. Knowing this I had little fear that my teacher would be upset that I didn’t continue following the assignment. So I submitted it to my teacher and she actually enjoyed that I stepped out of what she asked because she was able to see the effort and creativity that I put in rather than how I used to submit work. After getting that encouragement from my teacher I started looking forward to the weekly assignment and tried out different techniques. I tried pixel art, following a Tik Tok video on a moonlit ocean, making a realistic-looking bubble, recycled art, and drawing on an iPad. I enjoyed it so much that I ended up buying art supplies, something I didn’t do the whole time I was an art major. This was a great way I spent my time to take my mind off the fear I had about hearing all the people who had passed for COVID.”

In my formative years in school, I was instructed against using Wikipedia in any type of research-based writing because the website was considered a poor source given that it was open to editing and its information kept on changing. Moreover, I was reliably informed that Wikipedia contained opinions rather than facts. Therefore, the information in Wikipedia was either right or wrong since it is mostly individuals’ opinion open for editing and amendment. Based on the information, I did not consider Wikipedia as a credible source to be used or referred to in research-based writing.However, after reading Purdy, I have changed my understanding and opinion regarding the use of Wikipedia as a source or reference in research-based writing. I have realized that Wikipedia is a good source of information like any other reliable source and it only depends on how one uses it. In any case, Wikipedia is more aligned with the format used in research-based writing compared to other sources of information. Therefore, it is not right to say that Wikipedia cannot be used or should never be used as a source in research-based writing as we were informed in early schooling because some of the practices involved in successfully writing a Wikipedia article, including revising, sharing, reviewing, and conversing are also employed in writing research-based texts for college classes.

Purdy has explained various ways through which Wikipedia can be a useful tool to me as a student and scholar. First, Wikipedia can be used as a gateway to other texts for my research because its verifiability policy demands that materials posted to articles must be verifiable. Moreover, the website offers the names and direct links to other sources. In essence, such leads will be important to me when I have decided on a topic and I am searching for other sources to develop and support my thinking. In addition, I can use Wikipedia as a student and a scholar to crowdsource ideas. I could read Wikipedia articles related to my topic prior to writing, for instance, a research paper to acquire multiple perspectives or approaches that I might use to write the paper. Hence, Wikipedia articles offer multiple lenses which I can adopt to frame an argument.

After reading about how Wikipedia works, I will not consider it a community platform but a professional platform. Contrary to what is known or believed by many individuals that anybody can post or edit articles on Wikipedia whenever they wish, one has to conduct thorough research and have verifiable sources of information properly cited and referenced before writing or editing a Wikipedia article. The fact changes the idea that Wikipedia is a community platform because not all people in the community are capable of conducting thorough research and support their findings with evidence and opinions from other works as required by Wikipedia. I was not aware of the conversation taking place over every article edit. I simply thought that one only needed to open an article and add or remove some words without necessarily proving and supporting their arguments.

Growing up in a technological society where technology is the way of life and how we utilize it for resources, research purposes and the level of accuracy can be a bit confusing with so much information provided when surfing then internet.  I must admit,  that at time I find myself looking up information and clicking on the links in Wiki for guidance. As a kid I use to hear people joke during an argument about information and sarcastically they would say, “let me guess, your source is from wiki.” Meaning that Wikipedia was not always accurate. As a student, my teachers constantly reminded me not to use  Wikipedia because it was not a good resource and that some information was not accurate.  As explained in the article, “My premise for the first is that you are going to use Wikipedia as a source for writing assignments regardless of cautions against it, so it is more helpful to address ways to use it effectively than to ignore it (and ignoring it precludes some potentially beneficial uses of Wikipedia anyway).”  The rules are if you are going to use it regardless to the teachers advise, one should use it to our advantage. The article also explains that, Wipipedia is a good source and way of good writing practices.  As explained in the article  “Thus, this chapter proceeds with the assumption that it Wikipedia Is Good for You!? 207 is useful to consider Wikipedia as both a product (i.e., a source) and a representation of process (i.e., a guide to practices). It is good for you but one must proceed with caution.

As writers and researchers I understand the concerns that Wiki is not always a good source because it has changeability, and as stated in the article that we must be cautious when using wiki as a source. As a result, articles can display incorrect information. The explanation as to why teachers do not like Wikipedia is because the articles shared do not remain the same, anyone can  can write information on wiki without any educational background, therefore they believe that the information is not accurate. Another underlying issue  is that the articles are constantly changing and teachers feel that is not accurate.

Purdy explains the different ways that Wikipedia can be used as a tool to writing a research paper is by reading the information provided which can guide you into writing a good research project, one can make a change to the wiki article which can be beneficial to writing your research topic. It can also be a good tool to help us revise our work. Is WIKIPEDIA a good site I agree with the following quote, “I actually do think Wikipedia is an amazing thing. It is the first place I go when I’m looking for knowledge. Or when I want to create some.” —Stephen Colbert. This knowledge that he talks about is based on people constantly changing what is wrong about the information being shared.  It is a good source and after this article I will continue to use it as a way to guide me when writing my research topic.