Hi! I am Minhazul Islam and I hail from a small but green and beautiful country named Bangladesh, on the other side of the world. I would just like to add that we have the longest sea beach in the world (yes, serenity and romanticism) and we co-hosted the last Cricket World Cup (yes, plenty of team spirit).

I am in Pratt, doing an Electrical & Computer Engineering Major. I am also interested in pursuing a minor in Physics as well as a certificate program in Energy and the Environment. In the realm of sports, I love cricket and soccer and will most probably be adding basketball to the list soon. However, for a change, I am planning on joining the Badminton club here at Duke. As for my hobbies, for which I surely do not get enough time, I do photography and go out for movies. Besides, I am very interested in almost all sorts of community service activities. I am also always up for any random fun time!

Through this Writing 20 class, I am very eager to improve my skill of expressing my thoughts in a clear, concise and straightforward manner. In addition, I am very interested in learning to properly compose scientific articles and reports according to different scenarios and audience bases.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/ : This is my favorite website mainly because it always keep me fascinated and pull my spirits up high!

All the Best.

Today’s lecture is now available online (intro to ocean acidification), as are my notes and outline for the lecture (Wr20_Fall11_introlecturenotes).

Also, a pdf copy of the syllabus can be downloaded from the “syllabus” page or here: Wr20_Fall11_syllabus_ammended.

READING:  Chapters 3-4 in the NRC book.  These information dense chapters cite a large body of scientific research on the effects of ocean acidification on organism physiology and different types of marine ecosystems, and it may feel like an overwhelming amount of material.  But the purpose of this reading is for you to get a sense of the broad range of potential direct and indirect effects of ocean acidification, as well as the many uncertainties associated with those effects.  Also, please download and read the this handout on blogging, if you haven’t already.

WRITING:  Select one aspect from the reading on which to “zoom in.”  For example, perhaps you’re interested in the effects on oyster calcification, the effects on coral reef ecosystems, or a particular study referenced in the text (note the reference list for all chapters is near the end of the book).  Please briefly research that topic.  For example, maybe you would determine if there is a press release for a particular study (or maybe you could even find the study itself!), or 1-2 newspaper articles  about your topic.  Write a blog post (SW1) in which you explain that topic to a general, non-specialist audience.  If you’d like, you could offer your perspective on the topic, too – your writing can be “op-ed” style or more journalistic.  Aim for ~500 words, although length is not too important.  Please give your post a few keyword tags so we can start building a tag cloud!  ADDITIONALLY, please comment on at least one peer’s post to receive full credit.  Your comment can be on the content and/or the writing style of the post.

ALSO:  Please bring your laptop to class on Monday, because we’ll be going over some online handouts.

Hi! My name is Barbara Blachut. I’m from the Chicago suburbs- this is my first time in North Carolina. I am planning to major in chemistry, and possibly go on the pre-med track. I enjoy running, playing the flute, and going blueberry picking (My parents are from a village in Poland that practically sustained itself on picking wild blueberries). I hope that this Writing 20 class will help me express my thoughts more efficiently and clearly in well-thought-out arguments, because I feel that this skill is helpful in almost all aspects in college academics. And this website is one I like to visit frequently.

Hey guys, I’m Zohair!

My family originates from Pakistan, however I was born in Houston and have lived in Florida basically all of my life. I plan on majoring in Neuroscience, on a pre-medicine track here at Duke, and I’m pretty excited. I try to keep active, playing tennis or swimming, when I’m not hitting the books.

This site here is really neat, not very relevant to our Writing 20 course, however you may find it useful if you’re enrolled in a math class. It is called Wolfram Alpha, and it can basically perform computations for you like you’ve never seen before :O So try it out sometime.

What I’m hoping to gain from this course is to develop the skills needed to properly plan and organize and paper and its structure to produce a coherent academic piece. I would like to perform research here at Duke, and hopefully even publish a paper, and I feel this course will also prepare me for this.

My name is Sam McCachren.  I was born here in Durham but have spent most of my life in Maryville, Tennessee.  I am a biomedical engineering major, and I am considering also going pre-med.  I love to play any sport, most of all soccer.  My favorite website is definitely ESPN 3 because it allows me to watch many of the soccer games that US television networks don’t show.  I chose this writing 20 section because it fit my schedule and also seemed to be one of the more applicable courses to today’s world.

Hi. I am Alexa Frink. I am in Trinity and a biology major, considering pre-med. I am from Key Largo, Florida. I ride horses competitively, I ran cross-country and track in high school and I am a certified scuba diver. I decided to choose ocean acidification as my Writing 20 topic because my dad is a professional underwater photographer so I have always had an interest in the ocean and living in the Florida Keys, I am surrounded by water so the ocean has been a part of my everyday life since I was born. Also, I took marine studies courses in high school and am interested by the topic.

In this course I hope to further my writing ability and enable myself to successfully transfer what I am trying to convey onto paper in a way that sounds good. I am also interested in learning more about what ocean acidification is, how it effects ocean ecosystems and if there is anything that I (or anyone for that matter) can do to help.

You can be lead to many great sites on ocean acidification if you type the topic into the search bar on Google. www.google.com.

Hello, my name is Christopher Park but I prefer to be called Chris. I was born in Brooklyn, NY and moved to Los Angeles, CA when I was six years old. I like to play basketball and spend time with friends. I am a Freshman in Trinity and am planning to double major in Economics and Public Policy. However, if pursuing one major is going to be too time consuming, I might just end up majoring in Economics. At Duke, I want to get involved with organizations such as the Asian Student Association. Ultimately, I want to graduate from Duke and go on to law school.

Honestly, I chose this course because it was one of the only Writing 20 courses that fit my schedule. In disregard to that however, I want to make my writing skills better and more effective and become versatile with different writing styles.

Please download this handout about academic blogging.  I’ll go over it in class on Wednesday, but it’s okay if you don’t have time to look at it before then.

Hi my name is Cece Mercer.  I’m from Cleveland, Ohio.  I love to play sports (I played soccer, field hockey, ice hockey, and lacrosse in high school).  I like singing, drawing, reading, baking, and hanging out.  I’m adopted and have a little sister who also is adopted.  I lived in Ireland for a year and think it’s an amazing place.  I decided to take this class because I’m extremely interested in conservation/marine biology and this class seemed to be related to both topics.  My friend showed me this website http://www.sporcle.com/ and I love to play on it in my free time.  I’m a wretched writer and hope that this class will help with my writing.