Introductions

Hello, my name is Alyssia Pacheco and I am in my second year of the Professional Writing degree program, and I hope to one day work doing magazine writing. Learning about research will be more than useful throughout my years as a student, as I have many more essays and projects to complete, which may very well require me to research a certain topic.
I often wonder what exactly makes a source’s information reliable and useful, versus what doesn’t. I find that determining this and actually find those reliable sources to be the hardest part of the research process- because that is exactly what it is. Research is a process, often consisting of several steps. It isn’t just that one simple step of pulling a book off the shelf, but rather entails much more than this.

I have always been very interested in and fascinated by media studies. I thoroughly enjoyed a media studies class I took in high school. I hope to learn more about the media as I become more familiar with research. I particularly enjoy working with advertising. Anything from analyzing an ad, to creating my own, is very exciting to me.
I am not familiar with the information management software of RefWorks or Zotero, but am open and willing to learn about these as they could be useful tools in the research process.

I haven’t done an extensive amount of research in my university years as I have yet to write my first research paper. I do however research various things on a daily basis. I consider myself to be a very curious being and thus, am always willing to learn and know things. Whenever I come across a word with an unfamiliar meaning, I look it up instantly, on my phone. I read extensively online to educate myself on mental health, more specifically, anxiety disorders. I am curious about this because my twin sister suffers from a very serious case of social anxiety which restricts her from doing many things, such as working a job, going to school and just being in a public atmosphere. I want to know why this is her reality, as I am a firm believer in knowledge being power. The more we know, the more we can do in our lives and overcome the hurdles. This is why I often enjoy researching. These are all considered forms of research since I am going beyond my own knowledge to find information on a certain topic or idea.

I don’t have any experience at all with radio or podcasting, but am definitely excited to get started on my podcast and get familiar with making one. This will be just one more things to learn that I can scratch off my list! I am feeling intimidated by creating the podcast only because I tend to not be the very computer-savvy and am worried I will have trouble with the recording aspect of this project.

I would definitely consider the Under the Influence topic since the show is based on various aspects of the media such as advertising, which I really do enjoy, as I have mentioned before. On the Media caught my eye right away as well, simply by its title. As I read about what the show is focused in, I came to realize I might be interested in it as well. Recent news stories are always informative and fun to find out about, so I assume I would enjoy this one.