blog entry for lab on marth 31

News from institution with high reputation does impress me. News does not have many rhetorical sentences that wastes my time understanding what happened or what the true is. Instead, the format of news article is simple to be tracked: a short comprehensive topic sentence is usually in the first paragraph, which is easy to be located; the descriptions are arranged beginning the second paragraph. There are also comments from professors or researchers with high reputation, which can be trusted and considered.

I like a news with a live video that is higher convinced because a visual media can easily persuade me that I do see what is happening (I trust my eyes). Although videos are able to be technically edited by Photoshop or other computer programs, it is trusted that the video from official departments or reputational institutions are original and unedited.

The video is best to be taken in recent. It should be play continuously without cut. It should include the major incident and the surroundings to show a comprehensive view to the audiences. It should include the interview to people who are related to the incident.

Besides, a series of live pictures posted with news articles are helpful to convince audience.

The fifth personal literacy

My fifth personal literacy is doing presentation. I was not a good speaker, but last semester I got trained and had confidence standing in front of audiences giving out information. I took English speaking class last semester; one of the goals in this class is to teach students some strategies on presentation, and practice it in the class. To me this was really challenged because I had not had presentation experience before. I had felt nervous talking to public and had not been able to make the presentation logically. Fortunately, the instructor gave me a big push; he taught me that I must trust myself, and he suggested I could practice in front of mirror at home. These were really helpful to me, so the first presentation test I did well. However, I also had troubles on clearly speaking. To improve this, I read many English articles each week, and watch CNN news to adjust my pronunciation. I did an excellent job on final presentation test, I was fully confident that introduced my own tour experience to the other classmates. My presentation was logically, my speaking is clearly, and I had good eye contact with audiences. I obtain grade 4.0 on the final.


During this class I learned that if you believe yourself, you can accomplish your goal.

The fourth personal literacy

My fourth personal literacy is understands lectures in Microeconomic class. This semester I study microeconomics, which is a fifty minutes class in Wells hall. The professor does not take attendance, but I know I need to attend each class because it is important to understand professor’s lectures to prepare weekly quizzes. I capture the professor’s words, write down some essential definitions, and follow the professor’s instruction to draw charts like Opportunity Cost chart and Demand-Supply chart. The professor enjoys joking during the lecture (I do not feel funny when he is joking, but other American students laugh a lot), and he gives many realistic examples that help us better understand the knowledge. The professor also set up free review session on Thursday to answer Problem Set and student’s questions, which helps me a lot to maintain good grades on quizzes and assignments.


Catching up with the professor’s lectures during class time is an essential ability to students who would like to have more free time. That means if you understand and reply the information from the lecture in class, you do not need to spend much more time to review at night so that you are free to go to work out or watch movies. This is a good method that makes your time efficient.

The third personal literacy

My third personal literacy is understands descriptions and instructions when online shopping. The benefit of online shopping is that customers can just stay at home waiting their desirable products coming, instead of going outside, which wastes time. Also, the price of goods online is usually cheaper than the price sold in retailers. Amazon is a very famous online shopping website that provides all kinds of products you want to buy; what you need to do is input product name on search bar, and then you will see many options that march your choice. Last week when I decided to buy a Bluetooth earphone I searched on Amazon to look for offers. I read descriptions including technical Details and Product Details of one Bluetooth earphone, and then I decided to buy it. After that I followed instructions that inputted my credit card’s information, mailing address and my phone numbers. Finally I went over the information I inputted to make sure it was correct, and then placed the order. There are many advertisements showing discount and cash back; most of them are tricky because if you click their link your credit card information will be copied, and they will charge you each month, which happened on me last month that I was charged $11.99 for a service, which is I had never known.

the second personal literacy

The second personal literacy I have is interprets Chinese words to American students. I am glad to see that Michigan State University provides Chinese classes to students, and so many American students would like to learn Chinese language. A Chinese student created “language exchange club” last semester in Owen Hall, which is to provide an opportunity for American students to practice Chinese language, and an opportunity for Chinese students to practice English speaking. I am the member of this club, and each Wednesday I talk with many American students in basement of Owen Hall. These American students usually are taking Chinese class in MSU; some of them cannot express their thinking, others are doing good job that they understand what I say in Chinese and they can make an excellent Chinese sentence to express their ideas; there are few American geniuses whose Chinese speaking is almost perfect, even though they just learn this foreign language no more than two years. I am very happy to help them by interpreting some Chinese words and sentences. I also teach them some Chinese idioms, introduce lots of Chinese cultures, and provide assistance on their homework. The weekly meeting makes a lot of fun and helps me to make many American friends.

The literacy of understanding on investments

The literacy that is referred to my major is to understand stock data and charts on investments. Every day the first thing I need to do is open my Scottrade account to see stock market, and usually I would like to concentrate on one or two stocks’ quotations. I need to understand the price of Day High, price of Day Low, P/E ratio, and Earning per share ratio. Also, I anticipate stock price trend by analyzing stock chart, using many chart tools such as MACD and Bollinger Bands. However, these are not enough to earn money; the most important understanding on investments is to track stock market’s surroundings to know when the large investment organizations, such as mutual funds companies, decide to “raise” stocks price. What they usually do is attract other investor’s attentions on one stocks (they have many shares on this stock on very low price) by buying large amount of the stock’s shares at very short time, which leads to the price increasing; if successful, more other investors are willing to buy this shares, which pushes the price up; then these large investment organizations start to sell shares to earn money. To track this process, I need to analyze each day’s transaction volume from stock chart to make a decision that predict the period of time these large investment companies start this process, and buy the shares to follow them. I really enjoy doing this because I can obtain amounts of money without hard-work; I also have to take a few risks. Therefore, to earn money, I am not only able to understand data and charts, but also need to pray for luck.

what does literacy mean to you?

I think literacy is the ability of understanding, interpreting, and creating. Literacy can be words, symbols that are wrote down, or music and movie that are not recorded on the paper. Literacy is a method of transmission between abstract, like thought, and substantial, like documents.