On-Line English Teaching with My Student - Journal Title Episode

My Comment on the Journal Title - Episode -  

Episode  is an event or an incident occurring as part of a larger sequence.  Are you trying to write me a complete journal of your research result of Vicarious Trauma - VT?  Therefore, is this just the beginning of a short brief of something complete that will follow?  I am not too clear about your choosing the journal title - Episode.  I will leave it up to you.  Watch out the unerlines.

Your 1st paragraph:  With the mid-term semester approaching, my university is using continuous assessment instead of having exams at the end of the school year. Every week I need to read a lot of required texts and to write a brief summary for several articles. Further, it is important to force myself to contribute to the class discussion and to express my opinions.

Comments on the first paragraph:

I am glad that your professors use the on-going classroom assessment instead of final exam to measure the students’ grades.  I believe that testing students' ability solely through examinations is not a fair way to represent each student’s true abilities.  Of course, each person learns differently.  Some people excel in presenting their knowledge orally, others do extremely well in exam.  

Your 2nd paragraph: Since the study of psychology involves performing experiments on behavior.

Despite the intensive program in theory, I spend about two hours per week drafting a questionnaire, interviewing people and writing up the transcript.

Comments on the 2nd paragraph:

The sentence is a dangling modifier with “since ...............” There is no explanation about what you would intend to add as a follow-up.  So, you fail to include a target.

The corrected version:  The structure of this paragraph should be re-constructed to make it meaningful.

Since the study of psychology involves performing experiments on behavior, I spend about two hours per week drafting a questionnaire, interviewing people and writing up the transcript, despite the intensive program in theory.

Your 3rd paragraph: This survey technical training reminds me of my radio broadcast training during the senior year in college. I am always interested in stories about people, while life is not only about happiness. It is not easy to deal with heartbreak, even though I appreciate that my interviewees are open-minded to share their stories with me.

Comments on the 3rd paragraph:

I understand how important it is to embrace the future that holds while we honor our past experiences.  We should remain true to ourselves.  Gratitude makes sense that we used our past to bring the peace for today and create a new vision for tomorrow - your radio broadcast training.  Don’t you think that’s what “Thanksgiving Holiday” is for?  It’s this week, Nov, 27th that America is celebrating.  I agree with you that there is more to life than being happy.  We do have to face hardship and adversity from time to time.  I am always amazed to see some people are much more resilient than others.  You are collecting data from your interview with the clients. Did you find some of them bounce back quickly from heartbreak while some may take a while? 

I suggest you write a little more in this paragraph to describe your thinking path instead of jumping to the conclusion.  Writing is an art that involves with the common human experiences and the ideas, and themes embodied in it.  I am sure that’s one of the reasons that you have chosen your major in psychology.  Please share with me about what you should do with more examples to support your position in this paragraph. 

Your 4th paragraph: The vicarious trauma interrupts me, particularly when I gather the data and retype the pages of transcript. Because it means that I accumulate the stories of sorrow, including images, sounds and resonant details I have heard, which then inform my worldview. Nevertheless, I still believe that all of us have the power of resilience; the rememberer and the remembered alike.

Comments on the 4th paragraph:

Watch out all the underlines for grammar errors, sentence fragment, and dangling modifiers.  Your conclusion in this paragraph is not clear to me.  Especially,  "the rememberer and the remembered alike.” what is it?  Is it the remembered and the repressed are alike?  It is a sentence fragment or spelling error (rememberer) here.  I am lost.

Inform my world - Are you referring to ‘broaden my world view?”  Why does the vicarious trauma (VT) interrupt you?  Are you mislead by your clients or involved too deeply with the clients?  Maybe we will have a few words in another week to make it clear to me.  In the meantime, I have to refrain from making my comments until I fully understand your viewpoint on December 3rd. 

Have a nice one-week break!