Writers Response 4

Brandy Hendon

ENG 3310-01

September 21, 2001



Writer's Response 4



         In political science, there are so many genres of writing that one should never have difficulty in finding something of interest to them to read. To me, finding topics that I am interested in is extremely important. If I am forced to read something that I am not interested in for a class, I will often put it off until the last minute. What is the fun of reading something that is boring or uninteresting?

         For the most part, I am fascinated in the reading that must be completed for my classes because, as a political science major, I am interested in the subject matter. Learning about the judicial and legislative systems are things that are very important to me as someone who loves government, politics and the law, so these are much easier for me to absorb than European government. I know that European government is important because of the global aspect, and it does affect us in the United States, but I do not plan on ever living in Europe so it seemed silly to me that I needed to understand their form of government to the extent that I was expected to. Unfortunately, that thought process did not benefit me and I ended up getting a “C” in the class. On the other hand, reading some of the research that has been conducted on wrongful conviction cases that we had to locate for our own research projects in Scopes and Methods of Political Science class, really grabbed my attention very easily. Although I knew that wrongful convictions occur all the time, I had no idea to what extent or what the primary reasons were, so reading the past case studies made it very interesting to me, which made my project much easier to complete.

         Beyond the readings that are required of my classes, I read news articles and blogs that are related to my field several times a day so that I am up to date on everything that is going on in the world—especially if they are related to government or public policy. As a civic minded and politically active citizen, I believe that it is my duty to stay informed on what is going on in the things that affect the United States. The simplest way to do this is to have all of the stories that I am interested in come to me via Facebook and Twitter. Not only do I “follow” several news outlets such as Fox News and USA Today, but I also follow several groups on Facebook that link news stories from other media outlets and blogs right into my news feed, making it almost effortless for me to keep up with everything that is happening—and in an election year, there is ALWAYS something happening.

         I do not know that there is a specific style of writing that I prefer when reading, but I do know that I prefer reading articles and blogs over research studies and case brief summaries. Although I am fully aware of the importance of research and Supreme Court decisions, they tend to be more complicated in their format with their scientific language and legal jargon. Perhaps if I decide to continue on to law school in the future my opinion might change, but for now I believe I will stick with the things that peak my interest.