Adelina Ruffolo, W14, Introdutions

Hello,

My name is Adelina Ruffolo. I am currently in my third year at York University, majoring in Psychology and Professional Writing (Institutional Stream). I enjoy reading, watching movies, listening to music and writing. I am a book fanatic and I hope to one day own a gigantic library filled with novels. I love writing non-fiction because I feel some of the best stories come from our own experiences. I chose to study both Psychology and Professional Writing because I think possessing the skills that come from learning these two topics are extremely helpful. With writing it is always beneficial to know your audience and what they may or may not be thinking. Psychology is helpful in understanding the way individuals think and form opinions. I just started reading The Iliad and hope to finish it before school officially re-takes over my life with assignments and readings. I like the colour purple, soccer, The Beatles and Tim Burton (The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my favourite movies of all time). I hope to one day work in communications or in public relations.

I feel that research is an important concept in both writing and psychology. When writing a piece of work it is important to get as much information as possible on your topic. In order to get accurate and detailed information we must do research. When doing research it is important to know how to properly cite and give credit to sources. What do I want to learn about research? Well I guess I would want to gain as much knowledge as I can about the topic. It is never a bad thing to learn something new and gain new skills that are essential in the everyday world. I would want to learn new ways to research topics in the writing field, as I only have some experience with research in psychology.

I have never used any information software, the extent of my experience with research engines are PsychInfo and WebScience. In my time at York, I have taken two courses that dealt specifically with research (Introduction to Research Methods and Intermediate Research Methods). In the latter course I had to come up with a research study and part of the assignment was providing a Literary Review, this required a great deal of research. I had to spend lots of time on PsychInfo, looking up past research studies that were similar to my own and properly cite and reference over 10 sources.

I have little experience with creating a podcast, in my high school creative writing class we had to create a radio show and do some social commentary. My topic was on pop culture and what I disliked about it. I did not really put the show together, my friend who had more experience with computers helped me piece my assignment together. I am somewhat excited to create a podcast but also, slightly nervous because I am typically a quiet person and have no real experience with this. After looking over some of the podcast topics I am interested in either the Grammar Girl topic or On the Media. I just completed a course called Ethics of Publicity and I feel that, that course would help me with the On the Media topic.

Thanks for letting me share,

Adelina Ruffolo