Daisy Kim
Bridge 5: Presentation
Inquiry:
-I generated potential research questions by just simply thinking about something I am interested in. I was always fascinated with psychology so my first 3 topic ideas all had to do with some sort of psychology. My first initial topics were: the psychology behind fears and phobias, the psychology behind memory, and the one I decided to go with, insomnia. I eventually developed this idea into sleep disorders and how they affect college students. This was something I related to so I wanted to explore the various aspects of insomnia and hypersomnia.
Context and Investigation:
-All my topics were related to something I was very interested in: psychology. Out of all of them, I related most with my insomnia topic. Since junior year of high school, I really thought I had minor insomnia and now after my research paper, I think I have symptoms of primary, acute insomnia. With my research, I was not only able to find my own faults that led to my inconsistent sleep schedule, but I found ways for others to self-treat their own sleep problems at home. I talk about insomnia and hypersomnia in both my seminar paper and studio project because they are both sleeping disorders that can lead to terrible physical and mental health. Insomnia is a bit more common and more well-known, but hypersomnia is still just as relevant and detrimental to students’ health. In my Studio Book, I created 2 books that looked exactly the same on the outside. Both did not have a title so the readers would not know which coordinated to which disorder until they opened the books. On the inside, both books contrasted drastically to show the opposite disorders.
Interpretation and Argument:
-I found my sources by browsing the internet and databases. Soon after creating our annotated bibliography, I realized a lot of my initial sources were outdated so it wasn’t the best to use them in my paper. I also realized I gathered a lot of case studies and a lot of them concluded with saying they did not find a cure and that we should talk to our health-care providers. I did not like the initial sources I found so I went and found new ones.
Connections:
-After many drafts, I arrived at a final thesis statement which was:
[Lack of sleep or oversleeping is detrimental to students in higher education because it affects their work ethic, social life, health, and daily life in many ways, however, one can drastically improve his or her daily life by discovering the symptoms and treating it correctly.]
I had about 2 or 3 revisions of my thesis statement because I realized my research kept not matching my thesis, so I kept adjusting it. My outline helped the overall structure of my paper. Comments from my peers, Ruth, and learning center tutors were all very beneficial. Some opinions clashed but for the most part, I got enough critique to eventually evolve my paper into a better written research paper. For studio, my peers and Simone helped me further develop my visual aids by giving me ideas to make still images from my book into videos, which created a more interactive and unique look on sleep disorders.
Reflection and Presentation:
-The easiest part of this project I feel was the studio aspect. For me personally, I am more of a visual person so it was easier to create visual aspects of my topic. It was definitely harder to write the research paper, but it was rewarding to write it because I learned so much from it and I was able to share my research and thoughts to others. It was fun translating text to visual and vice versa because there were other interpretations to get my word across. It was definitely interesting to use Instagram as one of the final projects considering it is a social media that a lot of people can get addicted to. It was ironic to my topic because I claim to stay away from social media and cellular devices before bed in my paper, but it was best to represent my thoughts through instagram.
-In seminar, the most difficult part of this entire research paper was getting all the research and narrowing down the most important parts. It was also hard to keep the ratio of research to my own statements. At one point, I felt like I was just spitting information out and I was worried I would bore my readers. Having various peer-edit sessions and learning center tutor appointments definitely helped and I always like having outside views just in case there are things I wouldn’t notice.
-The most challenging part of translating from seminar to studio was making it understandable without being literal. In my book and my instagram page, I didn’t include any captions or any text. This was so the viewers can see for themselves and create their own opinions on what insomnia and hypersomnia really was. For my books, I didn’t give either a title and they looked exactly the same on the outside, but the inside was what made the two different. The instagram was a lot harder to work with, but because it is meant for photos and videos, I decided to mainly use photos and videos for each post. I ended up storyboarding on paper before posting everything on Instagram because the posts line up from the most recent to the last so I ended up having to plan posts backwards.
-I feel like the studio aspect definitely enhances my research paper because just reading words on a paper is hard to truly understand insomnia and hypersomnia. Both my book and Instagram page are strictly visuals which allow a different type of interpretation. Using colors, animation, and various edits, I tried to create an interactive form of sleep disorders.
-Overall, having both seminar and studio affected my work because it was like having another class/perspective on the same topics. I would sometimes get ideas for seminar during studio class and vice versa.
