Thesis Statements

    I think that why people are so afraid of writing thesis statements is because there is no set formula for writing them. For other classes that I have to write essays in, there tends to be more of a set structure. For example, last year I got pretty good at writing thesis statements for my history class because there was a basic, set formula for writing them. All I had to do was introduce the topic and identify my main points. For English essays, I think it is a little more difficult. You have to show more analysis which is something that I really have to work on. More specifically connecting things back to the work as a whole.
    Another reason why I think people have trouble with thesis statements is because we have had to kind of change our view of how we write them. When I was first taught to write a thesis statement, they weren't called thesis statements and all I did was basically outline my main points of the paper I was writing. I think when people are having trouble writing one, they tend to go back to that basic structure. I feel like I will be able to get better at writing thesis statements with more practice.

Digitalized Textbooks

      I like the idea of textbooks being digitalized. In the article, it mentions that in the long run having digitalized versions of books would be cheaper. So, all of the money not being spent on our textbooks could go to other things for our school. Another reason why I feel like this is a good thing is that it would be a lot easier to keep track of. If you have all of your textbooks on one e-reader or computer, then the only way to lose them would be to actually lose your e-reader. One negative would be the navigation of the textbooks. For the first part of the school year last year, I had an online textbook for a class. Overall, I didn’t like it because navigating it was really difficult and a lot more time consuming than navigating through an actual textbook.

                Thinking about digitalizing textbooks makes me think about how e-readers are starting to become more popular. I think there are a lot of great things about e-readers; buying books on them is a lot easier and cheaper than actually going out to a bookstore and getting them. I just worry that with them becoming more popular, actual books are going to become less popular. In the future if e-readers are the main thing people are reading from, what will happen with actual books? I prefer reading actual books to reading on an e-reader, but I just worry about the future of books.