Hello, and welcome to my website! My name is Rachael McKinney. I am 34, and I have been married for 15 years and have 2 children, ages 12 and 14. You will see pictures of my family below. I am a freshman at Sinclair and on the road to getting my degree in Spanish, as I want to become a translator. That was always my goal, but life gets in the way and starting back to school later is the hardest part. I had the chance to travel to Colombia in early 2016, (see pictures below), and that re-sparked the desire in me to pursue my degree.
Meanwhile, I do have a job I enjoy while I work my way through school. I work for the United States Air Force Marathon. I love the job because I am passionate about running. My favorite distance is the half marathon, though I have done one full marathon and multiple 5K's. I have run 14 half marathons. I even have my own 5K that I host as a charity event every May in Cedarville, Ohio, in memory of my mom, who passed from cancer.
Here, I am sharing my research paper on the thesis that Type 2 Diabetes can be reversed by changing the diet to a low-carbohydrate lifestyle. When I first heard about this, I did not believe it. But at the time, my husband's pancreas was beginning to shut down due to the disease, therefore, I wanted to know the facts and implement the ideas behind the idea, and that is why I chose the topic.
The doctor I first heard speak on the subject became a great resource for me, as well as pointing me to the evidence of the research. The hardest part about the paper was figuring out the most important details to share to convince my readers of the validity. Honestly, so many statistics and facts surround the proof of the reversal of the disease, that nailing down just a few ideas to share was hard for me. I used a lot of quotes and sometimes wondered if I overloaded the paper with them. The other hardest part for me was the visual. While many graphs and charts exist to back my research, utilizing those in the middle of a paper was new to me. I think that was likely my weakest area of the assignment.
Pre-writing always helps me. I am old-fashioned in that way, and tend to jot all my thoughts down so that when it comes to typing them out, I can arrange them appropriately. I actually really enjoy the pre-write process. I also appreciated the student feedback. I received a few very helpful tips from one peer in particular, which I believe helped me create a better written paper. I used to not enjoy giving critiques, but my last English class taught me a lot about that, and so I think this class I was able to better answer more thoroughly the critique questions on my peers' writings.
In addition to my research paper, I included my piece of the summary of the speech of President Obama. I enjoyed doing that exercise because it stretched me to learn how to summarize without quoting or using word for word.
Lastly, I included a personal writing piece. Writing is fun for me, and I have always enjoyed it. I write best when I just pour out from my heart, so at the risk of being vulnerable, I included that as my extra piece to showcase some of my free-writing skills.
That being said, from this class, I was stretched in my abilities. I have always thought myself to be a decent writer, but I learned how to sharpen some of those skills. Adequately quoting and citing appropriately was a new skill for me. I found the citations a little challenging. I tend to use "you" a lot, and when writing free style, that can be ok, but in an argumentative essay, I had to be careful not to do that. I really feel like I became a more thoughtful writer through the course of this class, and not such a "free" writer. I have worked very hard to obtain good grades through this course, and while definitely more stretching than my previous composition course, I wouldn't change a thing because I learned great details through the exercises of this class.
I hope that you will enjoy the pieces I have included here.