Drafting

Free writing. Arguably the number one greatest strategy for writing a paper. why do I say this. Think back to any paper you have ever written. Then try and think about how you approached your strategy to begin your paper. You probably thought about sitting down and brainstorming what you are going to write about. Well in all reality, this is free writing. Whats the difference? In free writing, as opposed to just thinking about your topic, you actually put your thoughts and ideas on paper. So begins your first draft.

    Now from this point, when your first initial paper is “done” you can go back and filter through your paper and get rid of the portions that have nothing to do with the topic, and also pick out the points or information that you can use. In essence this gives you a baseline of where to start, then you can build from there. Everything starts with a foundation, this technique builds a strong support for the rest of your paper.

    It is because of these reasons that I stuck to this strategie for as far back as I can remember. Writing has not been something that was always enjoyable, but with free writing it gave me the opportunity to write about something that I wanted to write about. Then, I was able to evolve the initial writing into something that pertained to the assignment, or in other words I was able to take a topic I didn’t care for and then tie in aspects that kept me interested and moving forward.

    Although this technique has worked for me quite well, it also lays way to potential disaster for me, and here is why. When I free write I go through the steps and processes to generate a paper to be turned in. However if I get done free writing, and I like what I read, I call it good and turn it in. This can be dangerous in the sense that it completely alleviates the revising process and can lead to holes and neglect where there should be proper structure. Keep in mind this is one of my faults, others may not have this problem.

    This mentality has followed me the whole way through school and into college. My thoughts,ideas, and strategies have pretty well stayed the same but its how I have refined these processes that has changed. Hence helping me develop into a more efficient and proper writer.

http://alison.com/courses/Writing-in-English

http://emedia.rmit.edu.au/learninglab/content/writing-skills

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2006/02/12/writing-tips-for-non-writers-who-dont-want-to-work-at-writing/

Rhetorical Analysis

Food commercials have always been competitive, in that these commercials you will receive a wide range of strategies that try and persuade you to choose the rhetors product. The big question is, which one will speak to you? Lets take a look at one specific company and what types of strategies they use.

One common strategy I noticed was the use of sex appeal. After all, don’t you want to order a bacon cheeseburger after watching a beautiful woman take a bite of one? Me either.

Fast food powerhouse Carls Jr. uses this strategy a lot. So what was the point? I think it is safe to assume that the majority of the population believes that fast food is not healthy. So in turn, people tend to stay away from fast food. What Carls Jr. did was take the biggest, thickest, juiciest burger they could come up with, put it in the hands of what we would assume is a paid model, and presto we have a situation that debunks the unhealthy belief towards fast food. In other words when an average person sees this commercial they get the impression that even the most gorgeous individuals are eating this product, so it is safe for you to do so as well. But is this the only strategy used? I dont think so.

There are multiple ways to persuade you to buy from carls Jr. we have covered sex appeal already, so what else is there? Lets take a look at the Burger itself. My favorite just so happens to be the Guacamole burger, so when I am at the counter getting ready to order what do I look up and see? The menu board of course. But did you ever find it odd that the picture on the board looked vastly different from the food  in front of you? This is the second strategy, the appeal of the food itself. This tactic targets an audience who may be hungry at that given time. You will see this a lot on the side of the road near major highways and interstates. In this situation you would be targeting hungry travelers looking for a quick bite to eat. You will also notice that these signs may appear at lets just say 100 miles before the given destination. This is playing on the chance that people are starting to get hungry, and are now starting to think about where they will stop to eat. If you are traveling and see this particular sign you are automatically drawn to the establishment, and as you travel that 100 miles you are so hungry by that point, the only thing you can think about is that billboard you saw 100 miles back. Then without fail you find yourself pulling in the parking lot.

There is a final piece to this puzzle that I think has become very effective, and that is slogans. Carls Jr. for example has adopted the slogan “If it doesn’t get all over the place, it doesn’t belong in your face”. I know from personal experiences attending barbeques, that the best tasting foods are in fact messy. I think this slogan was designed to target your average american males, in a sense that it gives the impression that when you order this product you will be satisfied in knowing that it has the same characteristics of your own barbeque burgers. Henceforth creating a common bond between person and establishment. After all what is the overall goal of having a barbeque? To eat good food with a group of friends and family.  Along with this it is a slogan that is easy to remember, and actually has become very popular because it can be tied into aspects of everyday occurrences. So when you catch yourself using the Carls Jr. slogan you also will find yourself thinking about what products they serve, and just maybe you will stop in later for lunch.

I have covered three different strategies that Carls Jr. has used, and the crazy part is these three strategies are used all at the same time, in the same commercial. This leads me to believe that using one specific strategy would only vastly limit your target audience. So to be more effective they use a multitude of tactics to try and target as many people as possible. But not only target as many people as possible, but also to plant that product or slogan into our brains in an effort to ensure we never forget.

Reading Response Student Choice

“The Idiots” by Joseph Conrad. The story starts out with a man traveling with a merchant down a lonely road whose only occupants are the children only referred to as “the idiots”. There are four children who have been deemed as such, where the passenger begins his curiosity at how this title came to pass. It wasn’t until they reached the farmhouse where a bedridden old women resided, watching over these children that the full story begins to unfold.

    The setting is placed in a small coastal town, set some time in the late 1800’s in the time where horse and carriage was still prevalent and the purpose of children was to carry on the lineage of tending to the farm.

    Conrad does a fantastic job of really painting a picture in the minds of the reader. He lays out in beautiful detail, not only the characters, but the landscape and feeling as well. He did this so well, that as I was reading, I could construct the images as though i was watching a movie, or better yet could place myself in the story as a bystander watching all of these events unfold. This is a dark and decrepit story filled with insanity and murder, joy and despair, thoughtfulness of life and the necessity for death.

    One connection I made was that in relation to the discard of imperfect children from the times of ancient Greece. The connection lies with The Becadou family where Jean-Pierre Becadou weds his wife Susan and some months later receive the blessing of two twin boys. A blessing? Not so much for Jean. Upon inspection of his two ne heirs, he notices a distant empty look in their eyes. A distant dark realm in which there was no return and no guiding light to the future. “idiots”. Another boy is born….”idiot”. One more try, they can’t all be like that…can they? A girl….an idiot girl! From this begins the the sorrow driven to madness within the Becadou family. madness that coalesced from the whispers, stares, sympathetic gestures, from those who were “normal”.

Looking at this story with the perspective of the modern real world we can all agree that the ignorance and closed mindedness of this family lead them to destruction before it even  began. How can you judge the outcome of an individual who hasn’t yet begun life. This is a stupid and… quite frankly a “idiotic” view point. Kinda ironic isn’t it? But we can learn from this story. I think the overall message here is to never judge too quickly and give life a chance. Because if we don’t we are destined to self destruct.

Overall I really enjoyed this story, the only problem I had (which wasn’t really a problem with the text itself) was that it is a old story that uses words and terms from a time in the past, not to mention a quite a few words I had never seen before, let alone knew the definition to. If you can get past that issue, this is a fantastic read.

   

   

Reading Response With “Us and Them”

Joel Morgan   

Reading Response With Us and Them

“Us and Them” David Sedaris – David’s curiosity leads him to the living style of his neighbors the Tomkeys. He finds the family to be strange in the sense that they are a family without a television and not to mention the constant talk of this small town. He begins spying on them to try and figure out why this family is so different from his own. Which in a turn of events, leads him from curiosity, greed, then to anger.

We can all point to a time in our lives when our childhood inhibitions lead down a path that we can now see as embarrassing or degrading. Or at least I can. This story is a testament to how I view myself as a decent human being. Reading through the essay I found myself looking back to my own childhood and how I looked at other kids in my grade. I put myself through the eyes of myself at that time and saw the kids who were less wealthy than my family and how I looked at them with amazement and wonder, curious as to what they went home to at the end of the day. After months would go by and I saw that their clothes became more frequently used, the stench of use and lack of hygiene became ever more prevalent, my focus went more from curiosity to seeing them as beneath me. But as time went on I realised that although I had more than these kids, I wasn’t any more, or less happy than them. Then I began to shun them, ignore them, keep at a distance from them. They were different and yet the same and there is no way I could tolerate that.

“Us and Them” actually brought back a life lesson that I had seemed to have forgotten. Thats not to say I kept that childhood mentality, but I lost sight of why I no longer hold on to that ignorant mentality. It gave me a new light to see, where the only thing worse than making a mistake, is forgetting the lesson that was a result. Stories like this are important in that aspect, because it keeps us with a constant check with ourselves, and the moment we lose sight of that, is the exact moment we are destined to repeat our failures.

Argument: elderly Drivers

Should elderly drivers be required to reapply for a drivers license? Yes they should. When we first apply for our drivers license there are several things that take place. one is have you reviewed the drivers manual and are knowledgeable about the rules of the road. Number two are you in good physical condition to be able to operate a motor vehicle safely. One thing no one can ever get away from is the process of aging, and with aging comes the deterioration of the body. How is this relevant? In most cases the first thing that starts to degrade is either hearing or vision. These two things are the most critical tools for driving. If you can’t see you will pose a major risk to the public around you. If you cant hear how do you expect to hear emergency vehicles that may be coming up behind you. So wouldn’t it make sense that at a certain age you would want to make sure individuals are still in good health.

    You could make the argument that middle aged drivers account for a higher percentage of car crashes, however it is important to note that the amount of people and the average miles traveled are far greater than that of the elderly. In other words there are far less elderly driving and traveling less miles than that of middle aged Americans. Also keep in mind that the crash rate for  Drivers 16-17 years of age is nine times higher than that of middle aged drivers. Then people aged 80 and older are at 5.5 percent higher for traffic accidents than middle aged drivers. (consumerreports.org, 2006-2014). Now lets compare the differences between young drivers and older drivers. Statistically speaking teen drivers account for about 4.4 percent more for traffic crashes than that of the elderly. But lets look at why. Teen drivers lack the experience of middle aged drivers and not to mention their brains are still developing. However with the elderly, though they have the experience now their basic motor skills are starting to degrade leading to an inability to accurately maneuver a vehicle. So going off of deductive reasoning, young drivers simply lack experience, which can only be improved with consistency and practice. Where as with the elderly, they are becoming physically incapable of performing motor skills, which is sad to say that not much can be done about these conditions.

What is it looking like for the future as far as the age of up and coming population is concerned? According to The Pew Research Center, 10000 “baby boomers”  will turn aged 65 every day for the next 18 years. So by 2030 elderly drivers will account for 1 in 5 drivers on the road, and will out number 16-19 year olds 3 to 1. Judging by this fact, we will begin to see a transition of overall population between the young drivers to the elderly becoming the dominant population on the road, which I also predict we will see the total number of accidents by elderly surpass that of the teen drivers. There is also the issue of cost, every time a individual is screened at the DMV there is a cost involved to process the paperwork. In this regard 28 states have enacted a law requiring individuals to come in and be evaluated on their current conditions. Some states require every eight years, some require eight years then at a certain age it becomes every four years. So ask yourself is the cost worth the price of saving someones life? The answer is yes.

    Going over these few facts, it is safe to assume that there are many aspects involved in what age group is doing what. But the fact remains that when it comes to elderly, age happens and there needs to be a “checks and balances” when it gets to the point of condition vs. the safety of the public. Keeping up to date on health is not a bad thing, after all we all go through different exams throughout our lives. So why would this be any different?  Remember safety is the responsibility of us all, and being realistic with our selves can be the difference between life and death.

Reverse outline

1 Free writing

• Best strategy

1. Think back to own strategy

   1. Brainstorming

      1. First draft

2. Filtering

• Trash Irrelevant ideas

• Keep portions you can use

  1. Starts with foundation

     1. Builds strong support

3. Why it worked for me

• Not always enjoyable

  1. tied in enjoyable aspects

• Something I wanted

  1. Evolve the paper

     1. always moving forward

4. Potential disaster

• steps and processes

• done writing

  1. turn in paper

     1. neglects revision

        • gaps in structure

5. My writing history

• Followed me

  1. Thoughts and ideas stayed the same

     1. Refined technique

        1. More efficient/proper

My writing process

Free writing. Arguably the number one greatest strategy for writing a paper. why do I say this. Think back to any paper you have ever written. Then try and think about how you approached your strategy to begin your paper. You probably thought about sitting down and brainstorming what you are going to write about. Well in all reality, this is free writing. Whats the difference? In free writing, as opposed to just thinking about your topic, you actually put your thoughts and ideas on paper. So begins your first draft.

    Now from this point, when your first initial paper is “done” you can go back and filter through your paper and get rid of the portions that have nothing to do with the topic, and also pick out the points or information that you can use. In essence this gives you a baseline of where to start, then you can build from there. Everything starts with a foundation, this technique builds a strong support for the rest of your paper.

    It is because of these reasons that I stuck to this strategie for as far back as I can remember. Writing has not been something that was always enjoyable, but with free writing it gave me the opportunity to write about something that I wanted to write about. Then, I was able to evolve the initial writing into something that pertained to the assignment, or in other words I was able to take a topic I didn’t care for and then tie in aspects that kept me interested and moving forward.

    Although this technique has worked for me quite well, it also lays way to potential disaster for me, and here is why. When I free write I go through the steps and processes to generate a paper to be turned in. However if I get done free writing, and I like what I read, I call it good and turn it in. This can be dangerous in the sense that it completely alleviates the revising process and can lead to holes and neglect where there should be proper structure. Keep in mind this is one of my faults, others may not have this problem.

    This mentality has followed me the whole way through school and into college. My thoughts,ideas, and strategies have pretty well stayed the same but its how I have refined these processes that has changed. Hence helping me develop into a more efficient and proper writer.

Writing Process

Jonathan appears to have spent many many hours developing his strategies for writing. How has Jonathan become successful in his techniques? Well he starts by stating that writing is a skill that you can develope and is not something one is born with. He gives two important things to consider, which is writing takes effort and practice. He also states five fundamental sections to consider. Planning, research, draft/revision, and most importantly your topic should be something you are passionate about. There are many strategies you can use in writing but remember to keep your goals challenging yet achievable.

The video gave me the impression that there was a lot of time and planning involved in just writing  a simple blog. Seeing this I now feel that the time I spent in the past writing  on various topics, was in a sense, empty and shallow. However this video did bring something to my attention that I think is valuable, which is time management. Proper planning ahead of time will give you the time and space you need to set a timeline for each goal you have set along the way.

I believe that the “calendar” strategie as I have come to call it, would be crucial for me to make proper planning of what I am going to write about and setting each section in a way that helps me achieve my goals every step of the way. Or in other words it will help me prioritize what I need to do in a beneficial series of events.

Essay: Ancestor Money by Maureen F. McHugh

“Ancestor Money” by Maureen F. McHugh— Beautiful blend of fantasy/reality” Ancestor Money”,conveys a writing style of the likes of which I have never experienced before. This is a story of a woman named Rachel who is deceased and is living out eternity in the afterlife. McHugh does a wonderful job of tying in all religions in a way that coalesces with each other.

The story begins with Rachel receiving a letter from Tin Hau Temple in Hong Kong where her granddaughter made an offering to her which she chooses to accept. The story goes on to annotate Rachel’s travels and her anxiety about leaving her afterlife home where she felt so comfortable.In her travels Rachel experiences the culture in the afterlife in a similar way that you would find in the living breathing real world, except there is a twist of demons and caring souls. Throughout the story Rachel is in constant panic and constantly feels a sense of unease at being away from her Swan Pond home and it isn’t until she is reunited with her quiet little home that she feels calm, and her soul is finally able to rest once again.

Critical Reading Essay

“The Sanctuary” (the world’s oldest temple and the dawn of civilization) by Elif Batuman is a paper outlining the earliest known civilization. Göbekli Tepe according to Elif is estimated to be be eleven thousand years old predating the great pyramids of egypt, and the earliest known cuneiform texts.

When I selected this paper, I based my first opinion on the title, thinking this was going to be a paper written strictly on fact and evidence (which just so happened to peak my interest), but it didn’t take me long to figure out that this was not going to be the case. So almost right from the start I felt betrayed and a little disappointed  

Reading through this paper I noticed that there were infact supporting evidence for this claim, however to me it seemed that the author spent more time telling about his travels than he did writing about the facts to support the information. Or in other words, it seemed that Elif was more of a tourist than a researcher. However Elif took a position as mostly a neutral party on the subject, he notes several different people from different fields who took sides on both hard evidence and hypothetical stand points. So perhaps this was his goal all along.

From my standpoint I had a hard time trying to figure out exactly what information I was supposed to be receiving. Was this an informative paper?  A log of a tourists perception? Perhaps this was about the local population and how they evolved through time? Was it about the culture of the local population? Was it about the culture of the ancient people? I think the best answer is simply that it was a log of what Elif had seen and experienced strictly out of his own curiosity.

So what could Elif had done different? In my opinion,to alleviate this confusion I believe the author should have stuck to one topic and started at the beginning with the archaeological facts, and progressed through time to the present day, using supporting evidence all the way through and tying each section of the paper together in a way that helps the reader follow a certain timeline throughout history. Instead I found myself jumping from one topic to another. One paragraph i’m reading about traffic, then the next i’m reading about biblical texts, then onto archaeologist interns, then onto a little back history about an archaeologist named Klaus Schmidt. I felt I was being pulled  in every which direction and never felt that I gained a firm hold on the text which is how it remained the whole way through.

It is important to note that although the text was all over the place, there were facts involved, along with stories, theories, conclusions based on evidence. But it wasn’t until the conclusion of the paper that I lost all sense of direction. There was a lot of time spent talking about past culture and how ancient people lived. But when it came to the conclusion, we end with Elif at a public prayer shrine with a local woman standing behind him praying. My thought was “what does this have anything to do with the paper I just read?”  Not to mention this thought had occurred several times during my reading. So if are looking for confusion and wanting to go in every direction possible this would be a good read for you. But if you are looking for structure and information, you better stay clear.