Participation journal
GROUP MEMBER: GARY YANG 2184292 ERIC WEI
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JIM WANG
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IAN CHEN
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Gary YANG 2184292
Week 1 After a group discussion, I think academic culture presumes receiving high education in university. It does have a great number of advantages, like establishing confidence, training critical thinking and improving study skills. By the way, the most significant point is team work. Study as a group can not only solving any problem quickly, but also strengthen communication potentially. Academic culture study in Australia fulfilling me through realizing my individual value in both living and study here. It is a method to collect useful information through internet, newspaper or books. Doing enough research could help students understanding the issue clearly, which is the essential preparation for solving problems. I would absorb huge quantity of knowledge during this step. I am convinced that I can solve any question or writing a good report after investigation. Writing reports represents combine the information we researched with knowledge from the book to make a conclusion. It reflects the understanding level of a topic, which helps students check the knowledge they learned. Otherwise, I do not have to do many researches again or read the whole book if I need to review it after several months.
Week 2 I can find a research topic through the internet or questionnaire. However, our group members hold the opinion that we usually get a topic given by our teacher directly. As far as I concern, a research topic comes from our daily life, such as our school work and what I am interested in. It means to fix up some questions I met or learn new knowledge I did not know before. For the most of times, I felt confused while I got a topic I do not understand. I need pay more attention on researching information and discussing in the group. I consider that discussing problems in a group can help me understand a research topic quickly. Critical thinking is the most I need, which provides by team discussion. However, it is possible that cutting the point after a long talk or misunderstanding the topic at the beginning. It is a little bit tricky if we search on the
website like Wikipedia. It is significant that reading related books or newspapers in the library. I think understand the key points and paraphrase it into our words is better than copy it directly. Otherwise, explaining the resources I used and giving a reference is effective than only a statement of opinions.
Week 3 A good report should have a good structure. It must conclude an introduction, body and conclusion paragraph. After the short group discussion, we think understand the topic exactly is first step. Then, we should do enough research through different approaches. And summarizing the ideas and finding out the result or effect it could cause. Make sure each section of report is clear. For example, do not have two ideas in one body paragraph. Effective reading is reading the information from articles, books or websites with a fast speed and good understanding. In another word, it means we should train our reading skills in order to get information we want in a very short time. It makes that keeping good reading habits is more important than what we thought. For instance, reading newspapers or some books during the leisure time, having a good control of topic sentence and taking notes or highlight the significant information while reading articles. Then, paraphrasing the main viewpoint and combining with our experience. Effective reading does have a great benefit to a report. After a long reading, I can understand every point clearly and have a good logic about the report structure, which means I can write report more quickly and effectively.
Week 4 After the discussion, we think opinion is a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty. It's more subjective, which cannot say it is right or wrong. It's just an idea, suggestion or recommendation showed by personal. Everyone can hold their own ideas. However, positions are quite different with opinions. Position must have two opposite ideas, like positive and negative part. It's a point occupied by troops for tactical reasons. Positions are more objective. We can hold only one position and using examples to prove it. The opinion can be supported by empirical evidence to
show your understanding or intellectual logic and emotional engagement. In contract, positions are supported by reasonable preponderance of empirical evidence. We need to use professional language to express our position and essential examples to prove it. To express a good position, we need to use our body language, eye contact and trying to use stories to persuade others. Actually, I cannot understand how to use language to modify our position clearly. In my opinion, I think listening presentation that holds the opposite position can make you modify your position easily. Because the opinion others hold may affect you if it is reasonable.
Week 5 For a good argument, I think make a draft form is very important. It must be consisting thesis, supporting ideas and a conclusion. A good thesis provides a structure and controls the entire argument. It is the basis of argument and makes the arguments flow well. During this step, we should have a good logical thinking for preparing every thesis clearing and progressively. During the discussion, our group think brainstorm is very useful. It gives us more possibilities and makes an argument easy to write. A draft can give me a clear thinking and solve some problems of my plan after a quick checking. While talking about the argument, the most significant is using examples to prove your thesis. It is really difficult to convey opinions clearly, which also considered as a basis a good argument must cover. We need to use supporting ideas from academic articles, reports or books to prove your own opinions. However, I found a lot of proofs we used in the argument are just close to our thesis or just trying to make them close to. So we need use more exact supporting ideas to insure not off the points. I think using the facts in real world is more powerful than hypothesis.
Week 6 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=00hUcdrelxA
Week 7 While thinking about this question, I feel confused. Because in my short report, I didn’t do it well. Examples used to proof my views are difficult to understand due to no connections. The whole report reads not smooth enough. As far as I concerned, thinking critically and using logical mind to make sure you understand the question clearly is significant. It is the base to make a good structure of your report. Then, using the connect words or phrases, which aims to show your topics step by step. It also can link the isolated information into an entire smooth essay. There are many elements for a clear and convincing argument, like structure, linking phases and good view points. Doing a good structure to arrange each view in causes or effects give you a clear mind to set your report. Then, thinking more deeply about your views, trying using simplest and exact phases as your headings or subheadings. It will make your argument looks clearly and easily to understand by the readers. Last but not the least, using linking phases to connect, contradict or summarize. It makes examples in an argument become logically and clearly. To sum up, using more link phases are good for expressing critical thinking and argument would become smoothly to read.
Week 8 After the group discussion, I think a good introduction not only address the topic we are writing about, but also convey the argument you wish to make. It should introduce the topic and provide short background information. It gives readers basic information and limits the scope of discussion. A good introduction should also present the plan of coverage including viewpoints. I think a good conclusion looks same as the introduction. It should summarize the views you hold in the essay. However, I don’t think it should be looks like the introduction anymore after the discussion. A conclusion is not simply a summary; it is an opportunity to remind readers what the main point it was you want to make. Another feature of a good conclusion is that it matches the introduction. Our group members also think it should conclude some recommendations after identify the major findings. It gives readers some tips about what is going on for the next. Conclusions and viewpoints are not the only things that readers are looking for. Effective proofs and the reasonable examples you use in the essay is what teachers are
looking for. Readers prefer a good explanation of the argument to an abstract summary of your topic.
Week 9 After the short group discussion, our group think using different degree of voice will change the whole meaning people want to deliver. For instance, a sentence could include the happiness, angry or embarrassed voice. In my opinion, different tone of voice can make a sentence expresses vastly different meanings. Jim Wang states that using an up voice in a sentence could change the type of text with a feeling of query. I do agree with that. A person can deliver happiness with a quick and sweet voice. However, using another deep voice would totally change your expression. It contributes to others consider you do not have a good mood. Communicating with eye contact is always beyond language. Through eyes communication, people can feel the motion of speakers and what they are going to talk. Furthermore, action is another method of communication that beyond language. For example, parents using kiss to deliver their love to children and children use crying to express sadness. These actions like touch heads, pat shoulders and examples above happens every day. Although people do not talk to each other, these non-verbal communications still deliver the meanings clearly. Sometimes, non-verbal communication is much stronger than talking due to some feelings or what you want to say is hard to express through words. A kiss expresses a romantic love and a hug could resolve the generation gap between parents and children.
Week 10 After the group discussion, I think presentation should get a good visual, which could make presentation looks professional. The most important for a presentation is what we are deliver to audiences. It means they will pay more attention on hearing than PowerPoint. In order to a good visual of PowerPoint, it must keep simple with cohesion. Using key points is a good suggestion, just like Eric said. People unwilling to read too much words in the PowerPoint. Reading makes people feel boring and sleepy, so trying to limit text. In addition, to make sure using the big size words with striking colors.
However, key points are not enough for a good visual presentation, capturing the audience's’ attention is crux. I think using gestures to point out where you want their eyes on is a good solution. Using gestures gives audiences an action could followed with. Jim Wang indicates that using some interesting elements like graphs and videos would captures the audience's’ attention effectively. I do agree with it due to facts is people want. Facts are the strongest proofs to persuade people believe contentions you give. Charts and videos are the two popular method that generalizing the facts. Although fluent and clearly expression would still catch the attention. however, people enjoy express the most important things after a short pause. Sometimes, a short time pause is a more useful measure to capture audiences’ attention. It means something important is going on.
Eric
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Week 1 Group discussion of some essential questions of academic education in Australia First of all, our group discussion presents a general definition that academic culture in Australia is excellent study environment during education, especially in University level. Specifically, my opinions of academic culture in Australia can be expressed by its academic freedom (communicate without depressive feeling), reference and critical thinking. Ian considers term work as the fundamental element for Australian academic culture. It is a interesting idea of understanding academic culture. Secondly, most of us think research is to promote cultural development of researcher themselves and understanding of the world by searching information widely. This is very thoughtful idea to comprehend research. We have different arguments at the beginning and consent this idea finally. This shows group member’s excellent communication skills and mutual understanding.
We do not reach agreement for the reason of writing report. Gary says it is a simple conclusion for your project while Ian considers it as demonstrating your views to other. I think we should combine these two opinions that it both presents our opinions and concludes projects to see the rule between phenomenon. To sum up, today’s discussions from multi-dimensional thinking inspire me immensely.
Week 2 I think it is a simple way to find a research topic. There are plenty of ways such as surfing the internet, questionnaire, experiment and group discussion. Moreover, sometimes, we can reserve a topic form our professor. However, we find it is difficult to seek a topic from textbook. Actually, this is a new area for Chinese students, which we think about the question itself instead of only answering it. This is because China exercises exam-oriented education system that student only need to remember everything and pass the exam without thinking why and how to solve the question. So, I am comparatively glad that I can arrive an academic freedom country that inspires my thought deeply and have the opportunity to find the initial answer. Study independently helps us focus on topics immensely. This is because we have a lower chance to be distracted when we study alone instead of group study. For example, study in-group can divert our attention ever by a word. Furthermore, we can find creditable information by academic journal or famous book. Those articles are reliable but not easy to find the exactly information that we need because of its academic property. We have no idea about how to use it effectively.
Week 3 The topic of this week is important to for us to comprehend the first assessment, which is a report. Basically, when I face this question, the fundamental factor is to thoroughly understand the topic we read for report. Moreover, we need to research widely and discuss with classmate so that we can understand the topic better than read on my own. After discussion, classmate supplements that it is easy to make mistake or digress the topic when we are writing a report. Therefore, one or two draft before the official report
is important. We also need to decide a logical structure for report. I just found my first opinion can be summarized as effective reading. To answer the second question, I connect it with my own experience. When I wrote reports in the last years, I always found that effective reading is significant. First of all, it helps me catch the main points of an article. Secondly, I can read article quickly, which saves time for me to write a report. So, when I look back what I did and summarize it, I find effective reading is how you gather necessary information as quickly as you can. However, there is another opinion that effective reading is not only about reading article. What else is effective reading, I don’t know the answer.
Week 4 Two questions have to be discussed this week, the differences between opinions and positions, as well as how to use language to modify our positions. In my view, it is difficult to distinguish opinions and positions because these two words have similar meanings to each other. Opinion is a belief or a way of thinking questions while position is the value or belief someone stands for. In my mind, opinions usually belong to position. Specifically, an opinion is one primary way to present people’s position. The second question is even harder for our group to think about. We first thought it on our own, but almost no one worked out an answer. So, we realized that group discussion would be a good way to think it. Just several words, I was inspired by. One of the approbatory points is we need strong persuasion. I just found what we were thinking those days; effective communication may also be a good way to modify our position. However, He Fu Yu disagreed it with effective communication is just communicate effectively instead of improving the content. I am not sure about that. Anyhow, persuasive skills should reach the purpose of modifying our positions.
Week 5 Today, our group discussed the methods of making our argument excellent, as well as how can we make a stand. Brainstorming is a conducive way for us to think the first
question. Specifically, the first word came out is ‘preparation’. At the same time, we drew the graph, which centered by the word ‘preparation’ and linked with many other words such as ‘effective timetable’ ‘ intrapersonal communication’ with direct lines. I was glad about this idea and felt our group members are creative. However, I don’t know what else can we have to answer this question. Maybe practice before the argument is a good idea. For example, we practice it and contradict each other’s points. Then, we could know what the weaknesses of our argument. We all were not sure about the second question. So, we checked the general meaning by the Internet, which shows it is a standing up for anything we believe in. since we all known what it general meaning, we started to discuss how can we do it. The first idea came form Gary, who thoughts believe themselves is the most important way to make a stand. I agreed with him and appreciated his logical way of thinking problems.
Week 6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00hUcdrelxA
Week 7 Now is information explosion era that we gain numerous information including blogs, articles, news and other contents from internet daily. When we meet so much information, organize our thought before manage information is important, which is a reasonable ideas worked out by whole team. In my mind, we even examine our thought process that we can ask ourselves is our process of thinking critically and reasonably. Specifically, if we want to use information properly, we have to synthesize it in the process of examining our thoughts, which means understand the article type is necessary. Then, we discuss the second question. we all know that convincing and clear argument is vital to our essays or reports. therefore, we need widely discuss it. some of group members searched the internet and gave some clues. we were inspired by it and summarized 2 points: thesis and support. thesis exactly tells reader what this article is going to talk, in other word, main topic. we also need to tell reader how it links with supports and restate thesis in our conclusion. this is a great idea. moreover, we often use
examples to support our argument, so it is important to have a example that accord with our topics.
Week 8 Introductions and conclusions are significant for academic essay, which is the reason why we discuss how to write good introductions and conclusions today. Basically, we attended consensus that good introductions need identify our topics. Moreover, essential contexts and our special spotlights for the topics need to be provided. A strong conclusion may mention the topic again in a different way and highly summarizes the whole paper. Those things can reach after many practices, but how can we have an interesting and effective introduction? We thought for 5 mints and gave a view of some special and interesting opinions from our own may attract readers. Secondly, if we want to work out a valuable essay we need to know what reader are looking for, in other words, highly focusing on our topics. It involves recognizing those aspects of a discussion that control the content of article. However, I don’t think it so important to be put first. I said the first things is making reader feel comfortable and smooth when they are reading, which means your article is logical and continuous. I had a violent controversy with group members, which makes me not happy at first. However, when I realized that such a debate also demonstrate that everyone pays attention to the question I am delighted. Week 9
We got two questions this week, how the voice change text when we are communicating, as well as, how and what non-verbal language acts during conversation. When I first time face this question, I am confused what it means by voice, same as my group members. So, this is also where we start to discover. According to Internet research by Jimmy, voice can be understood as intonation and sound intensity. Fro example, if we want to emphasize some words we say it with a louder voice. There exist another situation that we change our moods to express different emotion. For instance, we uplift intonation at the end of sentence to express interrogation. The second question is
comparatively easer than first one. There are so many gestures need to be used during conversation such as moving shoulder forward to express incomprehension or fear. Though body language hasn’t been studied specifically, in general, there are two types, open and closed posture, which represent we are not sure about what is talking and we accept what people told us. So, what body language does is interesting to think for us.
Week 10 This week we discussed the elements that make good visuals for presentation and attract audiences. It is interesting that everyone in my group holds same idea for the first element, which is the speaker is spotlight. It means everything goes around with speaker and service speaker. Therefore, it is better speaking it instead of write on the sides and use attractive images to supply our contents. Moreover, sometimes we need to present some diagrams to support our arguments, dress them as an interesting part is the most important task. Another key is that always remembers what we need to focus on, which are the purposes of each component, while the visuals provide something relevant to topic as a background. In my view, all the points came by group members are intelligent and reasonable. There are also several ways to capture people’s attention. The most important idea is keep audience engaged. A dynamic progress is what we need, which means even when we talk something serious, try to engage audiences in a ordinary way. Moreover, tell our stories. It can always contribute to resonance form audience. This points are proved by some great speeches that we found online.
Jim Wang
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Week 1 On March 2nd, we discussed about several questions about academic culture of Australia, the research and the report. From our perspective, the core of Australian academic culture is team work, independent thinking and academic freedom. These existed in our discussion. We all had different opinions and tried to convince others. That is a really nice environment for studying because in my county we just followed the teachers’ and good students’ steps. We had arguments in the definition of the research. Eric’s and Gary’s idea is finding information and doing some investigation to understand issue clearly. However, I consider that research is a method to solve problems or improve theories. We didn’t get an agreement in the end of this class. In my opinion, both ideas are right but with different starting points. As younger generation, having own opinion and arguing with others are very common, respecting teammates is the most important thing and I want to improve that. The ideas of the reason of writing the reports are similar. The conclusion of the reason is report is a method of making conclusion while that is not so acute. If we learn more and investigate more, we may have various impressions about reports.
Week 2 In March 9th, we discussed about several questions about research. According to the discussion, we found that there were so many ways to find the topics. For example, we could find our topics from books, newspaper and websites. We could also hand out questionnaires but in my opinion this method is not efficient. In next two questions I felt really confused because that was my first time to meet this topic and I really did not know what to say. However, my teammates helped me to figured out those problems. Group work could let people focus on our topic because if you distract somebody would notice you. However, when we go deep into our topic, there should be some new questions come out, so we could not make sure we are one hundred percentages to the topic. To find credible information, we should focus on our topic first, then we should know some background, furthermore, we need to search information from some academic articles and websites. We have no idea to use information effectively because
four of us had not did a research yet. So we considered that we should learn these things by experiencing more and doing more.
Week 3 In March 16th, we discussed about two topics. The fist one is writing a good report. I was lack of background information in this part, but during the discussion, I realized that we need to do lots of research (not just several articles) before working on report so that we could got enough accurate information for report writing. It is a little bit difficult for me because I don’t have enough patience to do lofts of searches in the ocean of information. I must to adapt that in several days to be suitable to write a report. Luckily, my group mate tells me how to do that. Effective reading is a familiar topic because we all studied in high school. However, different skills have been taught to us, we shared the information and to improve our skills. I am also weak at this because of low patience. But this is also a crucial skill for writing a good report because according to this skill people could get information quickly and accurately. We could save a lot of time by doing effective reading. So in our group’s conclusion, it is necessary to have this skill when people doing research.
Week 4 In March 23th, we discussed two questions which are the differences between positions and opinions and how can we use language to modify our positions. Questions became more complicated and abstract. At first, we really had no idea because there were so many definitions of the word position. We argued about this several minutes. In the end we determined that position was similar to standpoint. Position is more subjective. It is also the starting point when you consider problems. Positions control what you think and the points come out are your opinion. The simple explanation is that positions liken heading and opinions liken sub-heading. Modifying other’s positions is a hard, because usually teenagers are self-centered and stubborn. When people want to modify other, the first should be done is persuading. We could give the examples and advantages to
convince them. We could also use benefits to attract them. Telling them the disadvantage of their positions may make them confused and decrease them belief of their own standpoints. However, our group mates may use some evil methods such as giving their money or using violence. Of course that is a joke, but in the real life some people may really use corruption ways.
Week 5 In March 30th, our group discussed two questions. The first one is how could we make our arguments flow well. From my own perspective, making arguments flow well need to do lots of preparation. First of all, people need to do a huge number of researches and get some references. After that, you should make your own idea from the references. Then, clearing up your ideas and make it logical. Furthermore, finding the loopholes in your arguments and improve them to make your ideas prefect. In the end, you also should do lots of practices to be familiar to let your thinking and speaking much more fluency. The second one is how could we take a stand. Stand is something you believe. You have so many evidences from your life experiences. But if you have some new topic, you also need to do some researches and make yourself believe in it. However, with lack of background information, people could easily change their mind to trust other’s point and stand. Furthermore, people’s stands could change people’s action, so people with negative stand such a antisocial could destroy the world and make people scared. When you take a stand, you have to make sure that is a positive stand and could make world better.
Week 6 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=00hUcdrelxA
Week 7
In April 20th, our group discussed two questions. The first is the way to link the information properly. Obviously, to link the information properly, you need to use accurate linkers to connect your sentences. For example, there are some simple linkers like but or however could notice people you may give some information which are at the different side. It is also very important to make sentences logically. People could not understand your information easily if the message without logic. Furthermore, people should use different words with different people. If you are give the information to the individuals who are not high educated or native speaker, you should change your words and structure in simplest way so that the could understand what you want to say. The second question is what are elements of a clear, convincing argument. From my perspective, the most important is clearing your points. point is the coal of the arguments. People may forget most part of your talking, but if you have clear point, the can understand your words. The second important thing is the example. specific examples could improve your points, make it more realistic so that people could be convinced by your words.
Week 8 In April 27th, our group discussed two questions. The first question is how to write good introductions and conclusions. Honestly, I am bad at these two parts, so I listened carefully when they shared their own experiences. Introduction is used to give a general view and structure of your article. audiences could have a first impression so they could easily understand your words. To write a good introduction, it is necessary to paraphrase the long article. You need to mention all the points in your article. Also, you do not have to write too long, three hundred words is far more than enough. For conclusion part, you should summarize your main points and give some expecting of the points you mentioned. It would not be too long but accurate. The second question is the things that readers look for. Audiences usually want to read some interesting article with the points that the agree with. If they are attracted by the title, they would find the points and the story in the articles. However, if the body paragraph is boring, it is also useless.
Week 9 In May 4th, our group discussed two questions. The first one is how could ‘voice’ change with the type of text. The word voice has quotation marks. Four of us had different ideas about the meaning of the voice. It's sounds strange of the word voice because in our mind, text is usually being expressed by words. At first, we think the voice is the intensity of the words that you use in the article. For example, the words maybe, probably, can must could be used in same places, however, the meanings are different. You could different words in different situations. In essay is more suitable to use neutral words. If you wan to give a strong feeling to others, it is better to use some strong words. The second question is how much and what are we communicating beyond language. As we all know, language is the most common and effective way in people’s daily communication. The communication beyond language usually happened when people do not speak same language. In this situation, people have to use body language, gesture, eye-contact or expression to communicate. It is not easy because people have to understand the action and transform it to language and tell themselves the meaning.
Week 10 In May 11th, I thought about the two questions by myself because of the UWA trip. The first question is the elements of making good visuals in a presentation. Making presentation visually is all people’s dream. From my perspective, the first part is making a good PowerPoint. PowerPoint. Good PowerPoint gives people a nice visual impression to attract people. Pictures and video are also some good ideas for making good visual presentation. Audiences usually do not like watching a person who never stopping talking. They are interested more in the something could stimulate their eyes, so appropriate numbers of pictures and videos is useful. The second question is how to capture the audience’s attention. There are serial ways to attract audience’s attention. First, the title is very important. Audiences could be attracted by good title and they would listen to what to you say after in several minutes. Then, the details in the presentation should also be interesting, especially some contents they do not know. If you think your topic is boring, you could use the high speaking skills to get their attention. Changing the tone or speaking serial words louder is the most common way.
Ian Chen
2262099
Week 1 This afternoon, our group had an interesting discussion about the academic culture, research and report. We had an excellent discussion. During that, we got not only useful knowledge, but also a lot of fun. We did a great job in each topic, and also analyzed every idea we have thought about. At last, we summarized the most important information about these questions. What is academic culture in Australia? People who study in Australia may feel pretty different in academic culture from their home countries. After our discussion, we got a same conclusion, which the most different study method is team work. We did not have enough teamwork before. However, in Australia, most people have to learn how to work in a team. We can finish a large amount of work by team work efficiently. Furthermore, students have more freedom in class. If they have questions, they can ask their teacher immediately. They even can disagree the lecturer, when they have their own ideas. What is research? We think research is a method which we can get useful information for our study or work from Internet, reference books or newspaper. It is a wonderful way when we meet some problems or questions in our study. It is effective and recommendable. Why do we write report? According the discussion and my opinion, i think report is essential for everyone whatever they are studying or working. By report, we can give audience our ideas. And also, it is necessary for us to make a conclusion with a report. We even should get a patent if we discover an important scientific research.
Overall, our group discussed different situation about each three question. All of us think it is important to do a lot of research and write more reports because we have to make our study more academic. Finally, we think we should try our best to adapt new academic culture in Australia. It was an exciting discussion, we had a sense of achievement.
Week 2 This week, we got three new interesting questions and we continued to discuss. I recorded my thinking and something I learned from other three guys in my group. Firstly, I had no idea about these questions. I thought it is quite easy find research topic. Everything that i did not hear before all can be a good topic for research. However, after discussion, i learned that research is not a simple thing like its surface. Basically, we can find a research topic from internet, newspaper or our daily lives. And also, during our study, we will have a large number of questions. We can choose some academic topic to research for further study. Furthermore, they told me sometimes the steps of research, which must be full of academic information, is pretty complex. What we should do is not only finding information, but also doing a lot of analysis and record. So according to this conclusion, we think the topics of research also should be chosen carefully. Research topic must be significant for us. This is the most important details I had learned about the first question. After that, we talked about other two questions. We must focus on our study first, because the only thing we should do is study. So for me, the most topics of research are from my study life. I think, before research, we must know what I want clearly. The reason for that is too much information on the internet, if we do not have basic idea about what i want to know, I can not get anything during the research. Obviously, preview about my topic is essential. I will achieve wonderful specific information after preview because I have already known a little bit about my topic. I think this method is useful, which can make my research more efficiently. At last, we talked about the truth about the information during the research. I do think there is a lot of unreliable information in our daily life. So the credible information source is quite important. Generally, we should know the website is set by reliable organization. And also the reference books, which are published by famous publishing
companies, are useful. Most information in these books are real. I thought when we do some research, we must avoid fraudulent websites. Finally, we enjoyed our discussion and I got a lot of knowledge.
Week3 Today we discussed a lot about report. We will write a short report next week so the discussion about the report is necessary and important. Firstly, the questions made me mind vocabulary and grammar. I thought these two elements are the most basic aspects that we should know because the most important thing about report is that my audiences can understand me. However, after discussion, i found my thoughts are simple. A good report must have not only the basic expression, but also the logical structure and useful information. We should do enough research and only after that we can write a wonderful report. Otherwise, if we want to write a great report, it is essential to do a lot of research. But during the research, effective reading is the method to get information. Effective reading is the premise of a good report. In my own opinion, effective reading is that people spend the least time getting the most useful information. On the other hand, a reliable information source is also the key point to read effectively. According to these steps, our reports will be written better. Furthermore, we talked about how does effective reading contribute to a great report. It also changed my traditional idea about how to write a report. The good report depends whether the enough information we have got instead of how much knowledge we have learned. Better research can result in better report. Obviously, after a lot of effective reading, we will feel much easier to write the report correctly and fluently. All of these ideas were thought by our group and I learned a lot. It is wonderful and i am so glad to participate our discussion.
Week 4 This week, our topic is the difference between the opinions and positions. Before our discussion, i had no idea about these two words. I just thought the word ‘opinions’
means the personal ideas and the word ‘positions’ means an available job for someone. I did not understand why there is any difference between these two words. However, after discussion, I learned two words have an inseparable connection. People who have same opinions may hold different positions. For example, in different political parties, politicians have different positions because they all serve and work for their own parties. However, for sustainable development of their countries, they will do a lot of same decisions and also hold same opinions. This is the decision we got about the difference between opinions and positions after our discussion. Then we talked about how we can use the language to modify our position. In most cases, positions are stubborn. It is a little difficult to change others’ positions. But language is miraculous. We can use positive language to persuade other people. We can emphasize the advantage of our position. Meanwhile, remembering the importance of honest, do not try to cheat someone, use honest language to show your respect. Only under this case, if your position is really adapting to someone, they will absolutely glad to join in. The content above was the main idea about our discussion today. I learned the opinions and positions connect closely but also can be different. We thought the honest language is the basic way to touch other people. And also using clear and simple language to communicate with each other can make the conversation more effectively. Overall, wonderful discussion and it’s great to discuss with my group members.
Week 5 A new week, we get two new topics to discuss. How can we make the argument flow well? In my opinion, argument is a drastic discussion between two sides of ideas. And we have a great discussion about the flowing of argument. Basically, a competitive opinion must has several key elements. Firstly, consideration. Consideration is the most important keys in a wonderful argument. Before the argument, we should do some self thought first. We can think about what we want to express and how many reasons can prove your opinion. According to this way, we can speak more clearly and fluently. That can help our audiences to understand the meaning easily. Secondly, find the key point. Thinking about the most powerful evidences what you can find. And during the argument, you can prove your opinion around that evidence. It will give you more
chances to achieve the agreement from your audiences. This is the conclusion what we have got after the discussion and it is really helpful to me. Then, we talked about how to take a stand. I think this question is a little bit similar to the question about the position last week. Exactly, everyone must has their own stands. the controversial issues all have both stands. One side agree and the other stand disagree. Basically, i think the stands can be changed. In many areas, people’s stand are not supported by most people such as terrorism. The terrorists have their own stand as well, but their stands result in the terrorism events. In this case, their stands must be changed. In general, when we choose our stand, we must think about if that stand is correct. Is that stand refused by most people around me? Does this stand might result in some peaceful consequences? All of these questions are which we must think about before we take a stand. This is the discussion we have talked about today. Wonderful!
Week 6 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=00hUcdrelxA
Week 7 Today, we have discussed the topics about how we can combine the information together effectively. Basically, we think it is a great process to make our reports better. We tried to get some specific stages for suitable methods which can link information. Generally, we figure we must know what we would like to express and what the information about. We can separate the information to different parts. For example, when we write a report, we can differ the report into several parts. The connection between these parts is progressive relationship. And after each part, we can use some connective words or sentences to make the report fluently. Next, we have talked about the necessary elements which is a very important part in clear and convincing arguments. Most times, we can prove some things by examples or reliable references. We can not get a completely accept from audiences if our arguments do not have convincing information. So the wonderful source can result in the convincing argument.
Furthermore, we should have a clear mind when we express our ideas. If we clear our thoughts, it is useful to speak fluently. And then the result is good audience experience. The content above is the our discussion today. We achieve a lot and the discussion is pretty pleasant.
Week 8 Today, we have discussed about something more about the methods to write a good report. First, we have talked about introduction and conclusion of a good report which are very necessary. We thought a good report must contain brief introduction and conclusion. When we write introduction, we should already know the main ideas about the report and remember into our mind. Basically, introduction is a summary about the whole report. According to the introduction, reader can understand the meaning of the report clearly and fast. A good introduction can give audiences a good sense and they will have interest in reading the total report. Furthermore, conclusion is the repeat of the report and give audience a recommendation. Next, we have talked about what readers are most likely to get. Generally, most readers prefer to read interesting articles. When they read an article, they may have no patience to read the whole article so that introduction and conclusion is really important. At most times, when readers choose to read a report, they must have something knowledge which they do not understand so that they want to read the report for learning new knowledge. In this case, we can easily get a conclusion that we must write the report about the neoteric things such as great invents or science discoveries. We had a wonderful discussion today and i was very glad to discuss with my great group partners.
Week 9 Today, we have talked about the non-verbal communication. Beyond the language communication, we still have many other ways like gestures, postures and different voices. After discussion, all of us thought in our daily lives, we always use ‘voice’ to express our ideas. Sometimes, it is embarrassed to talk about some sensitive things. At
this time, ‘voice’ is quite useful. For example, a student does not focus on the class, teacher say his name with a little bit loud voice. In this case, every one must know what the teacher means. The teacher’s voice has a sense of angry. And a lot of other cases also can use this method to express our emotions correctly. Otherwise, we can not only use the change of voice, but also other non-verbal ways. In fact, we might not aware how frequent we use body language every day. When we would like to describe a ambiguous academic topic or surprising views, we can use gestures to show our meaning clearly. For example, when parents speak to their children, they can speak with amiable smile and positive gestures. A good gesture can give a supportive respect to their children and their children will feel comfortable and more likely to become a positive and optimistic person.
These body languages will make our
communication more effectively and a good speaker must have this skill. This is today’s discussion. I have learned the methods of non-verbal communication and i feel further understanding about effective communication.
Week 10 In this week, we have prepared for the individual presentation. So the journal of this week is about what elements a good presentation need to have. In discussion, we all thought when we in our presentation, the first thing we should remember is confidence. Being confident is quite an important aspect we should practice. Only when we are full of confidence, we can express our ideas clearly, otherwise, if we do not overcome the nervous, we could forget the words. And in presentation, we should keep making eye contacts with our audiences. In this way, we can confirm whether the audiences have understood us. And also, looking around, do not only stare at one place. We should keep smile on our face and show our energy to the audiences. Not only the good expression, but also the good contents in presentation if we want to capture audience’s attention. While we start the presentation, we can use a joke or some humorous words. In this way, audiences will have interest in the topic. Choosing a good topic, if we introduce a lot of things which is boring or every one has already known. The presentation will absolutely disappoint us. So a good topic must some interesting elements such as a new high technology, discovery or great invention. These things people have never seen will attract audiences’ attention. This is the content we have talked about in discussion.