Personal Reflective*2

CJG Omar Abdulla

Reflective Essay 2

           

Throughout this course, I have a lot of things in academic writing. Most of those things will be a great use for me in the future. This essay will discuss what I learned, liked, and will use in the future from this course.

           

The LSC 1103 course have improved my writing skills. I have learned how to cite and reference, which was a problem for me in the past. Also, it has been a very long time since I wrote an academic piece; this course helped me in refreshing my writing skills.

           

Writing skills are very important for the future. Many employees are asked to write reports or something of the sort in work and everything nowadays is written in English, thus it is important to have good writing skills. In addition, many employees are asked by their managers to write reports for them, so having good writing skills is an important key for the future.

           

In conclusion, writing skills are very important for the future, I have enjoyed this course a lot and having a very good teacher. Hopefully, I will start reading more books and trying to summarize them in summer to improve my writing skills. 

Essay*1

Omar Abdulla CJG-1103

Twitter: Social Networking

Introduction:

Twitter is a social networking website that incorporates a micro-blogging integration so that users are able send and read small blog like posts known as tweets. Since it’s conception, Twitter has attracted more than 200 million active users and is one of the top 10 visited sites on the Internet (Twitter.com Site Info, n.d). This essay will discuss the early history, development, modern development, and success of Twitter.

Early History:

While studying as a full time undergraduate in New York University, Jack Dorsey was struck with the idea of creating the trendy website. The word “twitter” when defined means - "a short burst of insignificant information, and chirps from birds" (Sano, 2009). Jack Dorsey thought that the definition of the word matched the concept of the site, which is communicating with a small group as an SMS type of conversation (Sano, 2009).

Development:

Jack Dorsey completed the development of Twitter in March 2006, and launched it by July of the same year. Twitter’s breakthrough came in 2007’s South by Southwest interactive – a film, interactive, and musical conference in Austin, Texas (Twitter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2013). During the event, the usage of Twitter messaging increased significantly from 20,000 to 60,000 tweets per day. Many of the people attending the conference used Twitter as a way to keep tabs on what is going on in the conference. In addition, Twitter messages were being displayed for the people attending, this served as publicity for the social networking site. Twitter’s undeniable success rate was unmatched the number of tweets grew to 100 million tweets per quarter in 2008. By June 2012, Twitter has surpassed 500 million users around the world, and 140 million of them in the United States (Lunden, 2012).

Modern Developments:

Celebrity endorsements are considered to be major contributions to the company’s lap of luxury. The attractions of some of the world’s most exceeding familiar faces from reality star Kim Kardashian to pop singer Britney Spears. Artists usually keep their fans posted about their news, by either giving them updates on their release dates or giving them an inside peak on their personal lives. In addition, 95% of the teams in all sports use Twitter to talk to the fans, get their opinions, and inform them of the latest news, signings, or results. Twitter became so infused into our everyday life and pop culture that even the candidates for the Whitehouse used it to promote their campaign with a constant update.

In order to further expand the usage, the company virtually “localized” their website so that it could cater to the rest of the world on an international scale. A strong example of international usage would be the infamous Arab spring of 2011 (BBC News - Twitter Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu version launch, 2012). Many believed that one of the most prominent factors leading to the revolutions would be the social networking website Twitter.

Success:

There is no doubt that Twitter has proved to be one of the top social networking website of our time. Having amassed an unprecedented number of users through a relatively short period of time, saying that 7 of every 10 people have Twitter is no surprise.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, Twitter revolutionized the social networking world in many ways where it has been described as the SMS of the web (Twitter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2013). Since its start, it has been experiencing rapid growth, and by the efforts and the innovation of its makers, the journey of Twitter won’t stop here.

Word Count: 589

Bibliography:

BBC News - Twitter Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu version launch. (2012, March 7). BBC - Homepage. Retrieved March 27, 2013, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17286684

Lunden, I. (2012, July 30). Analyst: Twitter Passed 500M Users In June 2012, 140M Of Them In US; Jakarta Biggest Tweeting™ City  |  TechCrunch. TechCrunch. Retrieved March 27, 2013, from http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/analyst-twitter-passed-500m-users-in-june-2012-140m-of-them-in-us-jakarta-biggest-tweeting-city/

Sano, David. "Twitter creator Jack Dorsey illuminates the site's founding document. Part I - latimes.com." Blogs - latimes.com. N.p., 18 Feb. 2009. Web. 17 Apr. 2013. <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/02/twitter-creator.html>.

Twitter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2013, March 25). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved March 27, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

Twitter.com Site Info. (n.d.). Alexa - The Web Information Company. Retrieved March 27, 2013, from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/twitter.com

Personal Reflection *1

Studying this module has been an easy road for me, due to the fact that I have taken a very similar module last year in the UK. Also, I wrote a lot of essay's in school, which helped me a lot with the summaries that we wrote in class during the past few weeks. This essay will discuss what I learntand haven't   in this module.

There are a few number of things that improved in my English reading skills from this specific module. The most useful skill is skimming through text and extracting main points, this was a very poor skill of mine and now after these few articles we ave been reading it has improved, and I understood the concept of it. However, after the last summary, I have taken note to something I have been doing wrong, that is using synonyms that do not actually fit or link to my writing. Hopefully, this problem will not occur again in the near or far future.

 In conclusion, I have previously taken everything we have took so far in this module, but I cannot say I haven't learnt anything. In addition, I haven't taken a class since August 2012, thus it is satisfying to be taking classes again and refreshing my English skills again after a very long 5 months pause.

Word count: 212

Summary*2 Final

Houbara Bustards 

Due to poaching, over-hunting and destruction of their homes, the North African houbara bustards’ number has significantly decreased in only a few decades. Humans need to be in regular contact with birds that are to be used for breeding to complete the in vitro fertilization process before the spring, which is the breeding season. Up to 600 semen samples are examined to see if the birds are up to par. Once the females are inseminated, it takes four days to lay eggs, and 24 to hatch. Chicks are covered with cloth and are caged, after they reach about 9 months old, they are let go into two batches. According to the article, “A year after their release, an average of 65 per cent of the birds survive” (Todorova, V. 2011). Thus, it can be concluded that the programme was successful in that a substantial amount of the birds stayed alive.

Word Count: 149

Reference:

Todorova, V. (2011, May 27). UAE-funded centre revives endangered bird population - The National. Latest and breaking news | thenational.ae - The National. Retrieved March 14, 2013, from http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/heritage/uae-funded-centre-revives-endangered-bird-population

Summary*1 Final

Preserving Emirati Traditions

Students, academics, and experts all agree that traditional sports of the Emirati culture like horse, camel, dhow and saluki racing, alongside falconry are important to the preservation of our national identity. Long ago, these traditional sports were an element of survival, and falcons and salukis are still used to hunt. Some blame schools and university curricula on the absence of knowledge in the traditional way of life amongst modern Emirati youth’s. However, it is necessary for Emirati’s to learn about their past, since it is a vital part of who we are as Emirati’s and it should be passed to other generations. No matter what the circumstances are, our culture and traditions will always be carried on.

 Word Count 117

 References
 Mouslsy, R. (2010, March 28). Keeping traditions alive | GulfNews.com. UAE | Education - Gulf News. Retrieved March 7, 2013, from www.gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/education/keeping-traditions-alive-1.603773

Me

My name is Omar, I was born in 1994. After I graduated High School, I studied a foundation year in England, a city called Sheffield to be exact. It was a very useful experience and I had lots of fun. Now I'm back to the UAE and I'm studying at Higher Colleges of Technology. I have stopped smoking very recently, it is not as easy as it sounds; sometimes I miss it, and at other times I don't.