This article was about
attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and the
controversies behind the disorder. I really like the title because it really
makes readers question what it is about, also it kind of follows in the line of
ADHD. The hook is good but I would like to know what ADHD stands for earlier in
the introduction rather than having to find in later in the article. Also it
was kind of confusing what “founder of ADHD” meant, maybe you could talk about
how he founded it later in the article and important discover, etc. The introduction
was good in general and provided good context on the issue. The listing of
topics helps the reader follow the article better and keeps the article more
organized. I like how the first paragraph added the authors own personal story
to the paper, and allows the reader to relate to the author better. However, I think
the first body paragraph could be elaborated on. For example, you can emphasize
more how easy it was to get a prescription. I like how the next paragraph makes
it seem like it is hard to get a prescription but the author subtlety makes it
seem easy. The body paragraphs have good transitions between them. The body
also is very strong on narrative and goo. There are prickles in the body but I think
that there could be more. I think it may be hard to find more so this is not a
big deal; also, the nature of this article does not call for a lot of prickles.
The end of the body has a few short paragraphs that seem to be a little
repetitive and could use some elaboration. It is only the draft so the author
could still be finishing. The conclusion bring a good end to the article by
bringing in everything. I really like the second to last paragraph because it
makes me connect more to the author.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Minh analysis
This research article
was about transgender people, specifically people who feel their sex and gender
are opposed. The authors introduction is good, and it provides good background information
to provide context on what a transgender person is and the issue behind them
(that they face extreme discrimination and internal strife). The introduction
does not really have any interesting fact or story that draws in the reader’s
attention, but I think that the title does a good job of that. So maybe if you
add something into the introduction it would be even better. The paper is
organized very well, and I like how every paragraph is clearly distinguishable
for another one. The transitions between paragraphs are also pretty solid. I like
how in the paper you do a very good job putting a human touch on what you are
saying. You make it easier to understand the point of view of the transgender
without using an actual quote or personal experience. The paper is also
effective in that it does have prickles, such as the number of LGBT Americans. I
would say that there could be more prickles but the nature of the paper isn’t based
off facts and numbers. I like how the different topics have a specific case
that elaborates on the topic. It helps the readers understand the issue at hand
while also putting a human touch on it. The audience of this piece is also very
wide. As pointed out in the paper, this is an issue that all of America faces
so anyone can read this article and learn how to be more accepting of different
people. The conclusion was very good at bringing the paper to a close and
summarizing what the author felt. I like how the authors stand on the issue wasn’t
apparent until it was specifically said. All in all I like the paper a lot and
think it is almost ready to be finished.
Zswoope
The topic was
interesting but the introduction needs more background context to draw in more
of an audience. There are not really any attention grabbers, such as an
interesting fact or a story. Also the title could be more of an attention
grabber because the title makes the article sound like an informational. The
topics are introduced as a questions, which is good for organization and
helping people follow the article. I like how the author added the questions
because it opened my eyes on genetically modified organisms and all the
different aspects of them. The transitions could be smoothed out better so that
the relationships between the different topics are shown. It is effective that
the topics are clearly outlined and described in each paragraph. However, the
topic can be further expanded on to lengthen the article and provide a human
touch to the paper. I like how there are questions that are used to introduce
the next topics because it lets the readers know what the authors thought
process is. I would like to hear more information about the human organ
growing, that is a very interesting topic. It can also be used to expand on.
The draft also needs a conclusion, but it is only a draft so it not a problem.
The conclusion can be used to summarize your personal opinion about genetically
modified feed or animals. Also I would have liked to see some more of the other
side of the argument, such as cases of when a genetically modified organism
went wrong. All in all I like the article, it is interesting and informative.
The article could use some polishing but this is only the draft so it is fine.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
600 words and 3 hours later
Most
people believe that honeybees are just bugs that fly flower to flower, stinging
whomever happens to walk into their path to the nearest flower. Bees actually
place one of the most vital roles in modern day society. They account for 80%
of all the pollination done in agriculture (backyard). If you are still not
convinced, picture sitting at the dinner table and one third of all the food on
the table disappeared. Bees do their part in the agricultural process by
spreading pollen between flowers as they are blooming in the spring. Pollen is
the male reproductive cell that all flower plants produce. As they fly from
flower to flower, the pollen sticks to the bees and then steals a ride to
whichever flower the honeybee goes to next. The pollen, which is one of the most
nutritious substances in nature, is then used as a fuel source for the hive.
However, since 2006 the beekeepers have noticed a sharp decline in their bee
populations. This is a major problem because the estimated $40 billion
agriculture business depends on these bees so that they can start growing crops
again (Hagopian). Their sudden die off is causing a major buzz in the science
community because they cannot determine a concrete cause for this issue. There
are many different factors that can cause this die off, and there is now
extensive effort to solve this problem because of their importance.
One
of the major factors that scientists are looking at is the disease called
Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Colony Collapse Disorder is describe as the
sudden disappearance of worker bees from the hive, even though there are babies
to tend to, a queen, and ample honey supplies for them to feed on (Stankus). In
the winter of 2006 to spring 2007, farmers noticed a loss of more than a
quarter of the country’s 2.4 million bee colonies, which was attributed to CCD
(pbs). Considering that in the winter months a honeybee colony has anywhere
from 20,000 to 30,000 worker bees plus the queen, that means that there was a decline
of tens of billions of individuals (backyard). These staggering numbers have
caused an increase number of studies dedicated to the subject over the recent
years. In the five years from 2008-2013, there was an increased amount of
scholarly journals on the subject coming from different subjects of science. For
example, 21% of the 140 references found in the study by Tony Stankus come from
multiscience journal, an increase from 5% of the 192 articles used in his 1917
to 2007 study. Previously two-thirds of the references came from entomology
journals, whereas in the new study the number is now down to 36%. The increased
diversity of sciences studying this issue highlights the present danger. As the
amount of information on CCD increases, the factors that cause this disease are
slowly being narrowed down. Even though there are no pin-pointed causes, the
scientific community has come to a general consensus that no single factor can
be determined the sole cause, but a combination of many factors.
The recent studies reflect the general belief for the
main factors that all attribute to CCD. These journals focus on; viruses and
how they affect the bees, low nutrition diets, toxins in the environment, and
the dreaded Varroa mite. The most
extensively studied virus is called Isreali Acute Paralytic Virus (IAPV). Symptoms
of this virus are paralysis of bees, lower populations per hive, and premature
dark coloring, all of which can indicate hive decline. Scientists have found
IAPV present in bee populations from all over the world including China,
Jordan, and Spain. It was found that when compared to IAPV-free bees, the bees
that were infected had “significantly lower rates of homing”, which is the
ability for the insect to find its way back to the hive. The infected
population also showed a tendency to settle for food sources that contained
lower concentrations of sugar. This behavior was not seen in healthy bees, in
fact the healthy bees would not consume the diluted solutions at all, but they
would continue to search for sugar-rich sources (Stankus). This behavior
supports the hypothesis that the infected individuals are less efficient in
hunting for food, or just desperate due to the ratio of energy spent to energy
gained. The continued consumption of low amounts of food may lead to the
eventual demise of the bee. Another virus that is rampant in bees is the
Deformed wing virus (DWV). DWV causes bee larvae to have underdeveloped wings
as adults and therefore cannot fly, which effects their ability to do their function
as bees. Scientists have found evidence that honeybees have inherently weak
immune systems that have “no measureable immunological response” to the
presence of Acute Bee Paralyic Virus (ABPV), a genetically similar virus to
IAPV. This makes honeybees more
susceptible to pathogens such as the IAPV and DFV viruses.
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Three Long Intros
Most people believe that honeybees are just bugs that fly
flower to flower, stinging whomever happens to walk into their path to the
nearest flower. Bees actually place one of the most vital roles in modern day
society. They account for 80% of all the pollination done in agriculture. If
you are still not convinced, picture sitting at the dinner table and one third
of all the food on the table disappeared. Bees do their part in the
agricultural process by spreading pollen between flowers as they are blooming
in the spring. Pollen is the male reproductive cell that all flower plants
produce. As they fly from flower to flower, the pollen sticks to the bees and
then steals a ride to whichever flower the honeybee goes to next. The pollen,
which is one of the most nutritious substances in nature, is then used as a
fuel source for the hive. However, since 2006 the beekeepers have noticed a
sharp decline in their bee populations. This is a major problem because the estimated
$40 billion agriculture business depends on these bees so that they can start
growing crops again. Their sudden die off is causing a major buzz in the
science community because they cannot determine a concrete cause for this
issue. There are many different factors that can cause this die off, and there
is now extensive effort to solve this problem because of their importance.
I now see bees everywhere I look. No I’m not going crazy.
One day, after struggling for almost an hour, my mom gave me the sudden idea to
do my research article on honeybees. She got her ideas from a friend who is a
supporter of local beekeepers. Most people would immediately ignore this topic,
but I remember how interesting an article called “New studies find that bees
actually want to eat the pesticides that hurt them.” This article described how honeybees were attracted
to flowers that had a pesticide whose main component was nicotine. This sparked
my interest and caused me to research the topic more. I found that bee
populations have been declining as much as 70% in Iowa over winter. This is an
important topic because bee populations everywhere around the world are
declining at a sharp rate. These bees are used by farmers across the countries
to pollinate the food that we eat, or the food that we use to feed our
livestock. Due to the complexity of bees, they have a delicate balance that can
be upset by the littlest imbalance. When they experience an environmental
stress such as pesticides they may begin to start behaving abnormally and then eventually
die off. The death of large numbers of bees would be detrimental because then
our food could not be grown as efficiently as needed. Not only are they needed
to feed the growing seven billion people population in the world, but they also
produce local honey that many people eat to increase their resistances to local
allergies since their honey contains the pollen from all type of local plants.
A world without honeybees would be one whose plate and
fields would be significantly more dull than the one we have today. Even today
our fields are beginning to have less wild flowers and other wild plants. The honeybees
are responsible for the colorful plates that we have today. The managed
populations of bees in America account for 80% of pollination in agriculture
including, but defiantly not limited to, apples, avocados, blueberries, melons,
and the clover that cows feed on. Since 2006 six, we have begun to see what
this type of world may look like. In the winter of that year alone, over a
quarter of the country’s 2.4 million beehives, which is tens of billions of
bees, were lost to one disease called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Colony
Collapse Disorder is describe as the sudden disappearance of worker bees from
the hive, even though there are babies, a queen, and ample honey supplies for
them to feed on. This phenomena has biologist baffled because of its quick
impact and mysterious nature. This disease highlights the larger issue, that
the bee populations can be so negatively affected by just one factor. A combination
of many different factors including colony collapse disorder, global warming,
monoculture, and pesticides have cause the national bee populations to decline
by 30% over the last 5 years. The rate at which this is happening is increasing
every year, last year being a 42% increase from the year before. The major
problem of declining bee populations should alarm everyone because everyone has
a stake in this issue.
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
America, Home of the....Homeless
In the excerpt “America’s Wandering Families” by Loretta
Schwartz-Nobel, the growing concern of starvation and homelessness in America is
highlighted through not only statistics, but also real life accounts and the author’s
interpretations. As stated in the introduction, many Americans believes that “nobody
starves” in the United States. Schwartz-Nobel uses this excerpt to blatantly bring
forth the issues of poverty and hunger to the middle-class/ upper-class
citizens of America. That is her audience because she wants the people of America,
who have the ability to help change some statistics behind these issues. I found
her excerpt to be very effective in getting her point across. To build her
ethos, Schwartz-Nobel uses a multitude of facts and statistics in the beginning
of the article. She loads the beginning of her paper with facts because a majority
her paper is narrative, but throughout the narrative she also includes prickles
to help the people in the audience who look for hard facts to support claims.
However, the most effective part of her excerpt is the use of pathos and
narrative to connect the readers to people suffering from these situations. Schwartz-Nobel
tells her story of visiting many homeless shelters in San Diego and describes
her journey in a way that allows the audience to emotionally step into her
shoes. Also during her visits, she uses three stories from three totally
different people to show the issue of poverty of from all different
perspectives. The story of her time with John, the Volunteer Director at the
St. Vincent de Paul Village, tells his perspective of the homeless shelter. John
provides a hopeful outlook on the issue, which causes the audience to believe
that they can help. The story of Tina, a young new mom who recently entered
this situation, illustrates to the readers that almost anyone can be thrown
into this situation and it is not as easy as it appears to be to climb out of
that hole. Her final testimony is from a single mother named Melissa, who is
experienced living this life and struggles to feed her teenage son. Melissa was
put into this story to demonstrate the illogical sense of the welfare/institutional
system. More importantly, Melissa tells the hard truths of living the
impoverished life. She talks about having to steal food in order to provide
enough food for her and her son to survive. I like how she ends the excerpt
with this testimony because the sometimes hard to digest information is what
the audience reacts to most. In all, I found Schwartz-Nobel’s excerpt to be
very effective is putting her point across due to her strong use of pathos and
universal themes.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Research practice
For my researched article, I chose to read “Caffeine makes
for busy bees, not productive ones” by Ed Yong. This article is short but I found
it to be interesting and it used enough research strategies to help me learn
about this genre. I chose this article because it is from national geographic,
and that magazine has built up its ethos as one that is good about the research
it does and is not misleading. The title of the article also works to draw me
in because the points out a connection between two things that I would not
typically see together, caffeine and bumblebees. I like this article too
because has the aspects of a research paper in it that would be useful to me.
The beginning starts with a little background information describing the effect
on caffeine on bees so that the readers can know exactly what the author means
to talk about in this article. Yong also uses narrative during his paper during
his paper to connect to the reader more. He talks about how he is drinking an
early cup of coffee while he was writing this, and that makes the readers
connect to him as a person more. It also serves a purpose to reflect how
caffeine is important to humans too and it adds an aspect of caffeine that
readers can compare to when deciding how caffeine effects bees rather than
humans. Most importantly, Yong uses information from studies that other
credible people such as scientists have taken. He uses question and answers
during his essay to introduce how his resources apply to the topic of how
caffeine effects honeybees, which makes the reader think more too. He ends the
paper with commentary of what he has learned throughout his research, using
skills such a drawing conclusions on how the bees are effected and using hard
statistics to demonstrate the effect to people who need concrete results. In
all I found his essay to be helpful but I think he should have put more
prickles into his stories to make it longer and to help the audience understand
the subject of bees more, it requires previous knowledge of bees to understand
everything.
Yong, Ed. "Caffeine Makes For Busy Bees, Not Productive Ones." Phenomena Caffeine Makes For Busy Bees Not Productive Ones Comments. 15 Oct. 2015. Web. 18 Oct. 2015.
Junk homework
In Lee Ann Fisher Baron’s “The Influence of “Junk Science”
and the Role of Science Education”, she argues that America needs to reform its
education curriculums so that students are better taught in the hard sciences
and math. This article starts out like the other one I report, with a beginning
excerpt that establishes the author ethos through her qualifications and
accolades. Her article is split into sections in so that her readers can easily
understand her points. The first two sections of the article talk about the
differences between real science and “junk science”. Baron does not like “junk
science” because it falsely convinces consumers of a scientific breakthrough
that has no scientific evidence supporting it, such as the herbal supplements
that many people claim to improve health. The author uses prickles to provide context
about what real science really is and how it differs from junk science, which
is effective in helping readers understand the differences. Her audience for
this paper would be parents and adults in the educational system that have
influence on what students learn. Her final section of her paper blatantly
describes her greater purpose in writing this article, which is that schools
need to “revive real standards” in schools across the country with regards to
sciences and math’s. she does this by using goo and pathos so create a
connection with the readers. The readers can feel how passionate Baron is about
this discussion and it helps her be more effective in reaching people. Her call
to action asks people to be better thinkers so that they can distinguish between
good and false science. I like how the article is so short because it keeps my
concentration and it gets to the point quick. I enjoyed both of these article
because they are shorter and interesting.
One thing
In Natalie Angier’s magazine article “One Thing They Aren’t:
Maternal”, she presents information about how even though humans have a nurturing
connotation of the word mother, it is not always the example we find in the
wild. She is writing this article for The New York Times because it is
approaching mother’s day and this offers another aspect of motherhood. Since it
is a scientific piece, Angier uses the first part of her paper to establish her
ethos as a renowned author and research scientist. I found that to be effective
in me believing in what she said. She has only a small excerpt in the beginning
in order to mirror how insignificant that “moms are great” is to this article. After
her small introduction to being a mother, the author spends the rest of the
article talking about how mothers from all kingdoms of the animal world are “coldhearted.”
In order to do this she uses a vast amount of prickles and very little goo. I did
like all the prickles she uses because they keep readers interested on the
topic by presenting new, cool facts. Her lack of goo has little consequence in
this case because the target audience is the more sophisticated readers on the
NY Times who would want to read an intellectual piece. Angier’s goal is to
present the information she wants to, so that her readers can realize how
special our mothers are before their special day. In addition, her lack of
commentary lowers the levels of emotion the readers have because the presents
it in a way that makes it seem like what is happening is only natural. The goal
is to demonstrate how mothers in the wild do what they need to so that at least
some of their offspring survive. I do not like how the article ended so
abruptly without any tying together of loose ends. I wish she provided more
commentary then.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
iSurprised
The
informative essay iWeb by Nicholas Carr, as you can infer from the title, is a
reference to the futuristic movie iRobot. This movie is about a population of
robots that humans create with artificial intelligence to do all sorts of tasks
for humans, but their minds eventually cause them to try to take over the
world. This article is not quite as extreme as iRobot, but it does talk about
how the internet and World Wide Web are constantly adapting to the human mind
in order to make processes easier for humans. As the author points out many
times throughout his paper, by use of many questions, the audience can see that
many people believe the internet has already started to become similar to an artificial
intelligence. With the case of google, the search engine contains a “page-rank
algorithm” that ranks every website based on the amount of times the website
has been linked to, the greater the amount of links to a site the better.
Google practically thinks for you using this program, where the internet thinks
which page would help you find what you are looking for best based on the
general popularity of the webpage. Carr does a good job of using prickles, such
as specific examples of the internet evolving ( the Mechanical Turk) and many
quotes from industry professionals, to prove the points he makes about the
internet. The only time I found his strategy of overloading with facts to be
ineffective was near the beginning when the facts seemed to all be saying the same
thing and near the end when the amount of knowledge being presented to you was
just too much to handle. However, this technique does work well with his target
audience, who are the tech wizards and internet enthusiasts who think that the
internet is amazing. The internet is amazing but his audience needs to see the
hard prickles of his argument to believe what the author is saying. I enjoyed
this article for the most part because I found the topic easy to relate to but I
thought the prickles could have been balanced out more by goo.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
peer review research paper
Min:
Like Carlie said, I think
you did a great job with the goo of the story. I found it very easy to follow
what you were doing and your thought processes. You did include a good amount
of prickles and I do not think you need more, but I think it could use a little
more in depth analysis of the prickles. For example, you could go into more
depth about why taking breaks helps the mind remember the information better. In
addition, I like how you had a strong plan of what you were going to do for the
experiment beforehand. I like how the three options were separated in an easy
to understand manner. I also think the question is relevant to a lot of people
so that it’s easy to relate to. I actually was forced to take a break while analyzing
this draft due to the fireworks and it helped me formulate my thoughts better
(even though the break was forced because I could not concentrate). There were
some grammatical errors but those are minor and can be fixed easily. I really
enjoyed your experiment and think the draft is a strong base, the only
significant thing I would do is expand more on the prickles or use more
prickles to analyze your questions more scientifically.
Carli:
I found your essay to be very interesting. This is mainly
due to the fact a good majority of the things you said, I was one of those
people you were talking about (do not worry it did not hurt my feelings). I
think you did a great job of telling your story, but I think it could have had
more in depth analysis of your feelings. Personally I know sometimes when I am
bored, alone with nothing to do I cannot help but to pull out my phone. I
forget I checked the same social media one minutes ago. In addition, you could
talk about how often you find yourself in
situations where you are uncomfortable or feel like you should pull out your
phone because everyone else is. You had a good amount of prickles to
expand on your narrative but I think it could use more, for example you could
talk about the science of addiction to the “high” you get from your phone. You could
have prickles about disorders where people think their phone is going off at
all times and it is not. Finally I think you could be more specific on the
things you used your phone for such as only calls or important texts. All in
all I think it’s a well written essay.
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Draft section
Nail biting, also known as
Onychophagia, is the severe habit of biting someone’s nail. Now almost everyone
has does this before, in fact “about half of all children between the ages 10
and 18 bite their nails at one time or another”, according to WebMD. Nail
biting becomes a problem when an individual continues the habit into their
later ages and causes significant nail and psychiatric damage. The psychiatric
damage is not the typically definition people would think of, but more similar to
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Many scientist today believe that nail biting
is a spectrum of OCD in that its caused by an unnaturally strong urge to groom
oneself. OCD is characterized by “persistent, intrusive, and
distressing obsessions (persistent thoughts, impulses, or images) or
compulsions (repetitive, excessive behaviors or mental acts)”, which basically
means that a person with this disorder has strong compulsions to do whatever
task makes them tick. OCD is believe to be caused by “alterations in the serotonin
and dopamine signaling.” Serotonin and dopamine are both neurotransmitters
found in the brain that have to do with the mood of an individual. Low levels
of Serotonin has been linked to depression and dopamine is release when “something
good happens unexpectedly”, such as the familiar sight of the free edge (cite
what that is).
Even though there has been no scientific evidence
to back up the theory that Onychophagia is a spectrum of OCD, I find this to be
the most accurate explanation of why someone, or me in this case, bites their
nails. After biting my nails for a majority of my life, I have found that the
sight of bitable nail causes me to have the greatest urge to just get rid of
it. As my nails get longer I find myself constantly inspecting them for any
excuse to bite off the free. Also the urge to masticate increases exponentially
the longer my nails grow. I am not used to them being long and one day after
about a week I couldn’t stop the urge to bite one nail, just one nail. The satisfaction
of biting the nail granted me a feeling
of euphoria, but more importantly it got rid of my urges. However this example
shows me that it will be harder than I thought to stop this habit cold turkey.
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
The Power of (In)Equality
The article “Inequality: Can Social Media Resolve Social
Divisions?” by Danah Boyd is about the development of social media and how
these websites have developed into everyday segregation. When the internet, and
social media, started to become popular, most people in society believed that
it would be the “end of social divisions.” She uses a lot stories from students
in order to prove to the optimist who think that the internet is going to solve
the cultural problems. By directly speaking to the main demographic that uses
social media, the young high schoolers, Boyd is showing directly how there are
social rifts being formed that even the users themselves don t realize. The
author provides information on the topic using personal fieldwork, or
information that she researched. She used a multitude of footnotes in order to
establish her ethos in that she had a good understanding of the topic. After
every topic, she has a self-reflection on what the problem at hand means, and
how it relates to social issues present in the teenagers lives already. Instead
of relying on interviews from students who use social media, Boyd also refers
to aspects of everyday lives such as the iPhone software Siri. By demonstrating
how everyday technology shows a bias towards race, she connects to a broader
range of audience who might otherwise think that racism online is just a hoax. Her
attempts to grapple with the complexity of this issue offer in depth analysis
of the issue from all points of view. She uses a majority of her work to describe
how the internet subtly promotes biasness, but concedes at the end of the story
that in internet it also extremely beneficial to students. She adds to the
complexity of the issue by stating how the connections that people build
between each other through networking online is extremely valuable in helping
you find opportunities later in life. The article reminded me a lot of the loneliness
of the interconnected, but I found it more interesting because of the primary research
she put into the work. However I didn’t like how her analysis were so complex
that I found myself getting lost in her paper and many of the points seemed to overlap
to me.
Thursday, September 24, 2015
I love Lobster
“Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace is another self-reflection
article about his trip to the Maine Lobster Festival. He begins the article by
providing good background information on why the festival is so important to the
midcoast region of Maine. Wallace does a good job of portraying the positive and
negative aspects of the festival in order to get a full picture of the
experience. One of the things I dislike about Wallace is his sometimes meticulous
attention to detail. He spends a lot of time using these details, such as the “four-mile,
50-minute” cab ride from the airport, for the audience to feel the experience
as he does. This does a great job at answering the questions he poses, but
sometimes I consider to be too many details. The author spends a majority of
this article talking about the morality of eating lobsters. He starts by
telling about the member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA)
assimilate themselves into the Maine Lobster Festival (MLF) in order to pass
around anti-lobster brochures. They argue against the live killing of lobsters
by boiling then in the largest lobster-cooking tank in the world. He continues
to spend the rest of the article to describe whether or not lobsters can feel
pain. The tone he uses implies that he believes that lobster can feel pain and
is a little unethical, but he doesn’t this that the right to celebrate at the
festival outweighs the negatives. Wallace uses a humorous and interested tone
to describe the MLF, which I do enjoy. He also does a great job at establishing
his ethos in this article. He provides a vast amount of background knowledge to
demonstrate his knowledge on the subject and he spend an even larger time
speaking of the scientific aspects of pain and how lobsters feel pain. Wallace
uses all of these techniques in order to build a strong relationship with his
audience, so that they can relate to his experiences. I enjoyed this article
better than his last one because it was more scientifically based and was more
than just eating lobsters and how he felt eating them.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Shipping out for good
“Shipping out” by David Foster Wallace is a very, very long article written about his travels aboard a luxury cruise liner. The first thing I noticed about this article was the length and amount of descriptive words he uses to describe his experiences. I had trouble trying to pick out significant points in this article because of the sheer amount of words and feelings he uses to describe each individual experience along the trip. Wallace also tends to exaggerate on some cases, which can be a writing effect, similar to the way the brochure only told the beautiful side of the cruise, to manipulate the audience to believe what he is trying to say. In addition, it is hard to recount many of the specific events because it is not user friendly going through the PDF file. However even though I personally did not like the length of this piece, he does do a great job of psychoanalyzing each individual experience from all points of view. For example, the cabin cleaning lady, Petra, is so good and meticulous at her job that it causes him to develop a “paranoia.” Most people would be overjoyed to have someone come in behind you and clean your room perfectly, while leaving you a fresh basket of fruit and a mint. Wallace, however, personally is freaked out by the fact that she only cleans when he goes out for 30 minutes or longer. The point of his article was to demonstrate how luxury cruises ae too perfect in the sense that they cause individuals to forget the little things in life a real responsibility. He does point out though that the cruise population is composed of almost entirely rich older folks, or their kin who benefits from their money, Mona. Personally, I did not enjoy this article very much because I found myself getting lost in all the words and I tended to begin to skim. I can see how people enjoy his writing though because it’s relatable due to his in depth analysis of his feelings and what is going on around him, I personally just hate reading.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
field work
I am a chronic nail biter. I could not tell you when I first
began to bite my nails, but now it has turned into something of a comforting
action. In fact, according to WebMD, “about half of all children between the
ages 10 and 18 bite their nails at one time or another.” The goal of my
experiment is to attempt to go as long as possible without biting my nails. I
am attempting to do this with the hopes of ending my bad habit and to prove to
other people that it is possible to do it. The issue of nail biting is not
actually the biting itself, but apparent lack of self-control. Scientist call
nail biting one of the top nervous habits, which includes hair pulling and nose
picking. It is a controllable habit but to many people like me you find yourself
biting without even knowing. It seems to be more of a comforting thing to me,
especially during Virginia Tech football games but that is most a stress
relieving habit. In all honesty, I doubt that I will be able to make it the
duration of this experiment without biting my nails. I mean in two weeks your
nails grow to a length where they need to be trimmed anyways. Even if I fail
thought, I think that this will give me the confidence to know I can last more
than one day. I have attempted this before but failed horrible, I gave up after
the first couple of days. Just the sight of my nails growing out gives me the
urge to bite. Maybe after these two weeks then I will be able to stop and I
will not looks so much like a child without self-control.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Unitasking By Jacobs
Today’s
piece by A.J. Jacobs was another weird article, which I guess is part of the
way he has made a name of himself as a writer. The subject matter of this
article was the art of multi-tasking, or making it appear that you are multi-tasking.
He starts the article with a personal account of how multi-tasking can be bad
for our health, in the most literal way, by being a distraction and potentially
causing us to drive into oncoming traffic. He relates to the other article we read
by him, in that technology has aided in societies obsession with multi-tasking.
It adds a personal aspect to the writing because even as I read this I found
myself distracted by many things such as my phone, food and the internet. Additionally
he uses a personal tone, as if he is speaking directly to the audience, in many
of his example of how easily he gets distracted during everyday things. Jacobs
also uses real life facts and experts to demonstrate how multitasking is harmful
to our lives. He references a recent UCLA study in that multitasking
essentially “rots your skull” by causing tit to constantly switch tasks.
However, he also reveals to the audience that no matter how much training and focus
he uses, multitasking is inevitable. While attending a meditation class to
improve his mental strength, he recalls how during one meditation exercise on
of his fellow students breathed like “Darth Vader. With asthma. During heavy
foreplay”, which really caught my attention. He reinforces his belief by ended
the article how he began, he started by being a distracted driver and ends the
story with him going off on a tangent about his son want to play mini golf, which
he began during a story about his first experience driving in two years. The
structure of his article drives in his point of “uni-tasking” by being separated
into sections. I assume the sections made it easier for him to sort his
information and reflects how it can be helpful, it made it easier for me to
read the long article.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Overly Document Life analysis
In A.J. Jacobs article “The Overly Documented Life”, he
explains to us how the human body is virtually unreliable in the sense of
remembering things and how technology can be a possible solution to that. He
presents the issue of using technology to document every hour of our lives with
a combination of both the dinner table model and Aldous Huxley’s three
directions model. He argues that the constant filming of everything done can be
extremely beneficial, in the case of trying to find your lost wallet or using
it to settle a dispute, but at the same time causes people to be less “real”
because they don’t want whatever is about to be done to be filmed. He continues
to follow many aspects of the dinner table with stories of how the
documentation of his life has caused him to have fights with his wife and how
it has helped him with the important things such as proving that he has seen a
multitude of celebrities in person. He also always circles back to the fact
that each new piece of technology that he uses initially appears to be helpful,
but has some sort of hidden catch to it. While trying to find his lost wallet,
Jacobs has the ingenious idea to use his Looxcie, a wearable camera that films
everyday life, to try to find it. His long and tedious search proved was
futile, but his wife succeeded within minutes by personally searching his
nightstand. However, I think he uses
more of Huxley’s three-direction model. Since the author is documenting his experiences
with these technologies, he offers a lot of personal insight into how effective
they really are. He provides information on the subject such as the high costs
of these technologies and how they require many other technologies to operate
these programs. For example, his Looxcie cost $150, but to store the 186 GB of
video he has on it he needs to buy an external hard drive which can cost
anywhere from $120-$700. He also applies universal aspects that anyone can
relate to such as wanting to remember a conversation to win an argument, being able
to stay more healthy, and finding tose lost keys.
Thursday, September 3, 2015
Reference 2
William Ellson. Facebook. Facebook, 26 August 2015. Web.
3 September 2015.
Summary: Will’s purpose in creating this Facebook post was
to call to action the people who are friends with him to try harder to prevent
these types of tragedies from happening. He doesn’t use fact of evidence but
his own ethos to gain people’s attention and respect for what he says. He also
links an article that highlights the wonderful lives of the two reports killed in
the recent Roanoke shooting, which exemplifies why we need to try harder to
prevent shootings.
Critical reflections: Will’s audience is obviously his Facebook
friends since they are the only ones able to see his post. This plays a large
role is his ability to make his tone less formal and more personal. He is known
by everyone as a respectable and educated young man, which allows him to have
influence over his peers already without having too many rhetorical devices. Also
since he has a small audience of his peers and friends, it allows him to put
more emphasis on other appeals such as pathos. He brings connections to the
fact that this tragedy was so close to VT and that it’s our job as a community
around VT to protect and help the people around us. Compared to the other sources,
Will is a lot more formal and less effective to the general public. Since his
audience is just his Facebook friends it allow him to write in such a way. Like
the other source, he appeals heavily to people’s emotions but doesn’t establish
his ethos as much through fact and numbers because it already has been established.
Quotes: “I am a gun owner and responsible shooter myself,
but something must be done to prevent these tragedies for occurring.”
“It is not just the responsibility of one individual, it is
an issue that we must all address, as a community, as a country”
Reference 1
Perez-Pena, Richard.
"Problems Plague System to Check Gun Buyers." The New York Times. The
New York Times, 27 July
2015. Web. 3 Sept. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/us/problems-riddle-system-to-check-buyers of-guns.html?ref=topics&_r=0>.
Summary: The author of this article aims to show people that
the background check system to purchase guns is a very flawed system. He
believes that the system should be fixed before any other legislation
considering gun laws is created. He uses a multitude of information and data to
put his point across to all types of people. For example he points out that if
the system wasn’t so flawed then the SC church shooting and the LA Theater
shooting could have been prevented. It was proven that both those men did not
fit the guidelines to purchase a gun, but through inadequate record keeping
they obtained weapons. Also he uses hard figures to demonstrate that something
can be done, stating that after the VT massacre federally prohibited buyers
tripled from 2006-2014. The author wrote the article in an effort to make
citizens push for better gun buyer screenings, as a sure fire way to prevent
some people from getting their hands on guns.
Critical Reflection: I believe the author’s audience is as
many citizens across the nation as possible. He is writing for the New York Times,
which is a very well read newspaper, so he must try to appeal to as many people
as possible. Since he is trying to appeal to as many people as possible that
causes him to support his claim from all different perspectives. He adds in
information from prominent gun rights activist the NRA and anti-gun supporters
like the Brady campaign to show that many sides believe that this is a good
start to the solution. Also this writer works with the editors of the NY Times,
so it’s safe to assume that the article was revised so that many people could
relate to it and that the article is written well. This article is much
unbiased compared to other resources that may be trying to argue one side of
the story, such as the Progressive Cynic’s article.
Quotes: “if Mr. Houser had been involuntarily commited in
his state, he could not have passed a background check” (11)
“From 2006 to 2014, the total number of prohibited buyers in
the federal database tripled, to 12.9 million” (17)
“Mr. Roof, who was captured after the Charlestown shooting,
was able to buy a gun because of sloppy record-keeping, officials say” (23)
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
Rhetorical Analysis Project beginning
The subject that I chose to discuss is the issue on gun control,
which now seems to be a very apparent issue. I aim to show both sides of the argument,
whether gun laws should remain how they are or should they be more restrictive,
through the use of formal and informal references. I chose this discussion
because it is a hot topic in politics at the current moment and has been for
many recent years. Also it’s a personal issue because I look to be a future gun
owner and come from a family where hunting was a popular past time, my father
owns more than 5 firearms himself ranging from .22 caliber pistols to .50
caliber muzzle loaders. People who argue for stricter gun laws aim for laws
that either restrict the American people from owning guns, or make it increasingly
difficult for them to purchase guns. People against stricter guns laws argue
that the right bear arms is a constitutional right and should not be hindered.
This topic has a large range of discourse due to its wide range of arguments and
reasons. In John. R. Lott’s 2013 book “More Guns, Less Crime”, he tells how even
throughout the years gun ownerships still continues to rise throughout all
groups of people in the US. I chose this book because in order for his book to
be creditable and published, all the information and facts that he provides
must be proven and unbiased so that he may reach out to a bigger audience. The less
subjective and more factual his book is, the better reviews and better sales for
the author. Also there is an article in the New York Times about the problems
in the background check system. This is one of the major proposed ways to begin
gun control rather than strict gun laws, and being in the New York Times it
would be viewed by potentially over 1 million people. The Progressive Cynic,
which can be considered an extremist political page, demonstrates the argument that
many people have for why guns should be control and why people who argue against
gun-control are misinformed. For my final reference bring up my good friend
Will. Amidst the tragedy that happened in Roanoke last week, he made a Facebook
post which showed the beliefs of many Americans on this issue. Many of the
citizens are not psychotic, but responsible gun owner with good intentions and
no matter how hard this issue may be to solve, it is our responsibility as a
country and community to do something to protect the people around us.
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Why women aren't welcome on the Internet.
In Amanda Hess’s “Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet”,
she uses strong language and personal experience to demonstrate that the issue
of sexism and harassment against women on the internet is not just a boy having
fun but a very serious issue. She attempts to show the men in society, who
compose a large majority of the law enforcement and internet companies, that
the messages that he and other female internet users receive are not just “juvenile
pranksters” but real life people who can possibly be harmful towards them. The
author appeals to our ethos and logos through her own personal account with a cyber-stalker. This lead to her calling the local law enforcement
who ended up not even filing a report. Hess was forced to pay a private
investigator into order to get a court case, and eventually a one year
protection order. Her personally account exemplifies the extreme amount of time,
money, and personal effort that women must put forth in order to avoid this harassment.
The author also brings this problem to light so that other women may see that
they are not the only experiencing this issue. It may be difficult for some
women to share their experiences with other women because they are driven away
from online chat rooms, which is shown through a drop from “28 percent to 17”
from 2000 to 2005. By publishing her own experiences along with the experience
of multiple female activists and journalist, along with the use of extremely vulgar
examples of comments they receive, she is able to gain the attention of more
people. The author does a pretty good job of present her argument from all
points of view, but she fails to prevent a solution to the problem. However she does point out that there is no easy solution to this argument because most men
do not understand where women are coming from since it only happens to women
for the most part. One possible way to help women, but not completely solve the
issue, would be to increase law that are already in place. There are only 3
federal laws that apply to cyber stalking and only 34 states with cyber
stalking laws, so it is apparent that more needs to be done to get rid of this
issue.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
The Loneliness of the Interconnected analysis
The Loneliness of the Interconnected is an essay on
how the internet has made it easier for people to become isolated, while being
in the midst of everything. The author, Charles Seife, proposes that humans
have strong mental foundations based on opinions we form throughout our lives. As
we encounter information that opposes what we think we tend to shy away from
it, and figure it to be lies. The goal of his essay is to illustrate to the
young adults and children of the internet age, that they should not be so
close-minded on their beliefs. The author uses facts and relevant examples to demonstrate
how the internet links us to an unimaginable amounts of information and people,
and with these resources people tend to gravitate towards the opinions on which
their foundations were formed. People will seek out the knowledge that they
want to hear and band together to form a cult of similar minded web surfers. Seife
wants us as a society to understand how we can benefit from the helpful aspects
of the internet, while simultaneously trying to fight against human nature and prevent
from being intellectually isolated. The internet itself is a never ending
library filled with valuable information that can be accessed in seconds and
we, the users, unintentionally dictate what we see. This is beneficial to
society because we can automatically have access to the information we want,
however it can also prevent us from seeing the other side of the coin and only
be narrow minded. That is the thin line that society now a days has to learn to
balance on. Are we going to be robots to the information that is funneled into
our computer screens, or are we going to be self-thinkers and be able to
process factual information even if we do not want to see it?
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