What is a Blog?

When I started this class I had mixed feelings about starting and maintaining a blog. You would too if you had the same view of blogs as I did. All I knew was that a blog was what people used so that they could narrate their lives and let anonymous people on the internet read about it. It was a concept that didn't seem to appealing to me from either side. Especially since I didn't want to have to make a website, something I had to do a lot in high school and had gotten bored of. After the initial assignment where we had to define what a blog was and what it was used for, I began to change my mind. I found out that it was more than just a way for people to talk about themselves. It was something that was useful in tons of different ways to many different groups of people.

I learned that a blog could have many different uses. Businesses could use them to communicate with their employees. This would promote faster transfer of information within the business and instant feedback from management and employees. It's also an easy place to organize all the ideas on different topics for the business. It can also be used for companies to promote their new products, which is a good form of free advertising. Bands can use blogs to keep a journal of their tours whatever else is going on to keep their fans informed and give them something they'd want to read. Hobbyists also can use blogs to share ideas and give tips to each other on a large, but personal feeling, scale. In my first post, I speculated that blogs could even be used in research fields to give people a place to share their ideas, theories, and frustrations. Also, of course, blogs can be used as a personal journal, which isn't as bad an idea as i originally thought. Having an online personal journal lets only the people who care about what you have to say, hear what you say. With that, you only get people who have something to say about your ideas and experiences making comments to you.

I think that, overall, using blogs for our ENG 105 class has been beneficial. Although it has been a pain to constantly write and post on our blogs, it's no different than writing the assignment on a piece of paper and turning it in by hand. I believe that blogging in this class even has had some benefits over doing the work on paper. For instance, you can turn in the assignment at any time from any place with a computer. With Blogger you can even save blog posts that aren't completed and finish them from any computer when you feel like it. Additionally, instead of just handing in the paper and that being the end of it, you get to read what other people thought about the subject and look at what your classmates had to say about your ideas. I'd say that, overall, I thought that using the blogs for class was a good idea and implemented well.

An Imperial Message

Franz Kafka wrote a short piece entitled "An Imperial Message." The piece describes a king on his death bed who wants to send a note to somebody who lives outside the town. The messenger has difficulty making it out of the king's bedroom with all the onlookers crowding into it. Kafka makes it clear that it will be impossible for the messenger to make it to his destination and that the message will be skewed after such a long travel.

After analyzing this work I realized that it has much more meaning that initially meets the eyes. It was suggested in the introduction that the castle stands for God. Viewing the story from this perspective gives lots of meaning to it. With the castle representing God, the main character in the story would represent a faithful and humble person. This person is just waiting for any sign from a higher power, but that sign (message with the messenger) will never come because there are too many obstacles between the higher power and it's believers. In a more broad sense, the castle could represent the absolute truth from any disconnected authority figure, abstract or concrete. What the story is saying, is the average person will never feel a sense of absolute connection with the truth because there are too many thing mudding up the message before it reaches him. If the message ever comes at all.

After some short reading about Kafka's life, I found out that he was indifferent to religion for most of his life. Kafka could have written this story to hide a lesson in it, or try bring realization to others. It seems like he was trying to say that one will never know the absolute truth by waiting for it to come, one must search for it, referring to spirituality. He also might have been trying to say that such matters are futile and that one shouldn't wait for something that will never come and just to go enjoy life instead.

Argument Visual

http://www.thedailygreen.com/cm/thedailygreen/images/bg/gm-crops.jpg

I think that this visual would be a very useful one for my long argument paper. It is a graph which shows the percentage of crops in the United States that are genetically engineered, from 1996 to 2007. What it shows is that there has been a steady increase in the use of GE crops over the last ten years. What this means is that these crops have been in use and have worked well enough for more farmers to adopt. This implies that there haven't been any adverse effects from the crops. The graph will help my paper by assuring the audience that these crops have been in use for a while. It will also show that the benefits are good enough to make people want to plant more of these types of crops. Therefore, the graph appeal both to pathos and logos and makes for a very good visual in my long argument paper.

Discrimination is a Virtue

In "Discrimination is a Virtue" the author, Robert Miller, discusses how the word 'discrimination' is misunderstood. He reveals how it actually means to differentiate between two things in an informed manner, instead of the commonly used definition of disliking something because of trivial stereotypes. I think that the idea that Miller brought up definitely applies to the current presidential race, being that an African American man and a woman both have a good chance of becoming the president. When talking about the presidential race, people use the word 'discriminate' wrongly. The presidential candidates should be discriminated from each other, but not in the way the public sees the word. Discriminating between the candidates means that all the important differences are looked at and analyzed. So, discrimination actually helps when deciding who is the best candidate for president and not deciding who is the best candidate based on trivial trails, such as race or gender.

Prospectus

1. The author's thesis wasn't made clear, which should have been done. Especially when talking about an argumentative essay.

2. The prospectus didn't flow very well. It could have used better structure and transitions.

3. The author should have gone into how students plagiarize and what teachers can do about it. Only the issues were looked at, not many solutions.

The Logic of Baldwin's Argument

James Balwin, an author and participant in the Civil Rights Movement, made good points in his essay “If Black English Isn’t a Language, the Tell Me, What Is?” on why Black English is a language. He starts by comparing it to other languages in different nations. Saying that “a Frenchman living in Paris speaks a subtly and crucially different language from that of the man living in Marseilles: neither sounds very much like a man living in Quebec” and so forth. By describing this parallel he shows the reader that such language difference exist in other languages and that it is commonly accepted as another form of that language. He goes on to further this argument by explaining why these differences arise. He essentially says that each region or group of people has their own very different life, and therefore requirements from the language they use. From these needs, a new language is created from the old one, one which the speakers can use for their specific needs.

In describing the state of the French language he implies a large reason why Black English wouldn’t be considered a language. He does this when he says that language can be a political issue. He implies that we cannot fully accept Black English into our culture because we have not accepted them into the history of our language and have little interest in preserving the black experiences. He argues this by showing his readers the many effects that African Americans have had on White English. By doing this, the audience can see that the two languages are indeed different and interwoven, both as culturally important as the other. Overall, I believe that Baldwin does a excellent job at logically arguing why Black English is a language.

Annotated Bibliography

Nottingham, Stephen. Eat Your Genes. New York: Zed Books Ltd,1998.

This book was the most comprehensive one that was found on the subject of genetically engineered crops. It provides a two-sided look at every issue and gives the reader all the facts and speculation on a topic, good and bad. The book also specifically addresses many aspects of the subject matter and provides reliable evidence for the claims.

The author is Dr. Stephen Nottingham. He is a biologist who specializes in crop
protection and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge. He has worked on many
projects and jobs where he would gain credible experience with the issues associated with genetically engineered crops. The purpose of the book is to provide readers with all the tools for them to decide whether or not they believe that GE crops are safe. I think that the hidden purpose of the author is to show readers that the technology is still in its infancy and the risks are too great.

This source is going to be very useful to the paper I’m writing because of its in-depth examination of the issue. It goes over many obscure concerns and benefits that most other sources neglect to address. Additionally, since this source is trying to let readers make the choice on their own, it provides unbiased information and very little pathos appeal. This is useful to me, as many of the argumentative articles on this topic are too reliant on pathos to sway their audience and give little usable material for a research paper.

See through the CRAAP

MedlinePlus

Currency
This site looks like its updated pretty often. At the bottom of the page it says the last date where it was updated and it lists today’s date. Each of the links still functions and leads somewhere. I think it’s safe to say that this site is very up to date and is taken care of often.

Relevance
Relevance depends on what the paper is going to be on but I’d say that this is a very versatile website. It has a ton of different subjects and manages to explain them in a way that’s not too basic or complex. I would use this site as a source if I had to write a paper on a medical topic.

Authority
The National Library of Medicine is the source for the information. It’s a trusted source and would be appropriate to use in a research paper. Under their “Quality Guidelines” link they have a list of how they evaluate their information and the sites they link to. They use a system that relies on reviewed and trusted information. They are also a .gov site and don’t have any ads, which helps their legitimacy.

Accuracy
Their information all comes from trusted and reviewed sources, as listed on their “Quality Guidelines” page. Their tone is very professional and all their proof of the accuracy of their data is legitimate.

Purpose
The purpose of the site is purely informational. They state that they don’s support any products and just want to give people access to medical information. They aren’t trying to promote or sell any products and all the information is just stated as fact without any hints of being biased or based on opinion. Reading this site feels similar to reading an encyclopedia.

Global Warming: Is It Really A Crisis?

The article I decided to find logical fallacies in was one I found on foxnews.com called “Global Warming: Is It Really A Crisis?”. The article discusses the hotly contested issue of global warming. It talks about how regulations against carbon emissions are harming us, how many scientists believe global warming is actually nonexistent, and how if it were real that the temperature increase would actually help the world in many ways. Something about this article told me that it would be ripe with logical fallacies …

One of the first arguments made against the regulations made due to global warming is about the rules that mandate that cars must get 35 MPG. The author claims that “The rules will make us poorer, forcing people to buy products that aren’t otherwise the best suited for them.” This logical fallacy is a “non sequitur” because he fails to tell the audience why these rules will make us poor. He skips several important logical steps in determining that conclusion.

The second logical fallacy occurs when the article says, “Are global temperatures rising? Surely, they were rising from the late 1970s to 1998, but ‘there has been no net global warming since 1998.’ Indeed, the more recent numbers show that there is now evidence of significant cooling.” This type of logical fallacy is called “stacking the deck”. The author uses sources that are biased and not credible as scientific evidence that global warming isn’t occurring. He completely ignores all the credible scientific data that is in favor of global warming because he doesn’t want his audience to know about it.

The third logical fallacy is painfully obvious and it seems very ridiculous that the author would even try to slip such a poorly though out argument into his article. He states, “If we believe that man-made global warming is ‘bad,’ we still don’t want to eliminate all carbon emissions. Having no cars, no air conditioning, or no electricity would presumably be much worse than anything people are claiming from global warming.” The author creates a “false dilemma” here by only giving the two extremes of a situation. In all the solutions I’ve heard about for solving global warming I’ve never once hear one so extreme that it calls for immediately cutting out all carbon emissions. The author tries to make his audience think that we have to decide between global warming or technology when that argument couldn’t be further from the truth.

Middle-schoolers get the pill

The article "Middle-schoolers get the pill" was about a middle school in Portland, Maine. The middle school wants to try to prevent teen pregnancy by giving their students, mostly eleven to thirteen years old, access to birth control through the school. There are two major viewpoints shared in this article. The first is that middle-schoolers shouldn't be having sex and by giving them access to contraception the school is encouraging them to do it. One person compared the situation to "dealing with the reality of teen smoking by handing out low-tar cigarettes to the seventh grade".

The other view is the one advocating this new program that the middle school wants to start. They believe that middle-schoolers are having sex anyway so they should be provided with the means to protect themselves. They say that the problems that can come from unprotected and underage sex are too great to just ignore this problem and hope that kids won't have sex. With easy access to contraception they would be lowering the rate of teen pregnancy, which causes kids to drop out of school, and the amount of sexually transmitted diseases.

The article provided one main counterargument against giving these students access to the pill. That was the comparison between handing out contraception and cigarettes to teens. This is not a valid argument because they are two totally different situations that aren’t comparable. Aside from that, it implies that kids will want to have sex just because the school is giving out contraception, which isn’t true at all. A perspective that I feel was overlooked was that of the parents and the kids. These are the two people that will be most affected by this and they didn't even consider what either of these parties think. The parents would especially be an important factor in this issue because they usually have the most influence over school policies.

Rhetorical Analysis Reflection

I wrote my rhetorical analysis on the essay “On Dumpster Diving” by Lars Eighner. I actually enjoyed writing this because it was one that involved more critical thinking and had more depth than what I was used to writing in high school. Writing this paper really helped me hone in on my skills in analyzing pieces of writing and show me where I need to improve. Most importantly, it showed me what strategies of mine worked when writing a rhetorical analysis. I’ve always viewed a rough draft of a paper as a final draft with grammatical errors. As such, I always think the rough draft has to be perfect and I run into major writing blocks. But, in writing this essay, I discovered a strategy that has really helped me formulate my ideas better and smooth over the writing process. On this essay I wrote my analysis in chronological order of how it was written in the book. This made my ideas flow faster because it meant I didn’t have to scatter my attention to different parts of the book and organize my essay at the same time. After I finish getting all my ideas down I already know how I want to arrange my essay. I doubt that this is a new discovery, as teachers have probably been trying to get me to do this for years. It’s definitely better that I started using this strategy late instead of never.

I’ve always had difficulty writing effective conclusions because I always get stuck thinking that I’ve already said everything that I want to and don’t know how to finish the essay. Getting my paper back confirmed that I need to work on my conclusions. In the conclusion I just repeated some of my main points and in the future I’ll have to work on finding a way to put all my ideas together so that it gives the essay closure and progresses it a little bit further. I think that to get better at writing conclusions it will just take practice, in addition to reading and analyzing papers that have model conclusions.

The only other major problem I had in this essay was concerning syntax. Most of my favorite authors write in a stream-of-consciousness style, which I enjoy reading. This can tend to influence my writing without me knowing it. I believe this adds to my problem with grammar and punctuation. Sometimes I’ll write my thoughts instead of translating them to literary English and I have to go back and edit my phrasing until it’s clear. Reading back over my paper when it was handed back helped me see the areas where I needed punctuation or better phrasing of an idea. Fixing my problem with syntax shouldn’t be too difficult. Double and triple checking my essays, in addition to reading them out loud will help a great deal with this issue and help me get better at spotting sentences that don’t sound correct.

Overall, this paper really helped me learn to express my ideas a lot better. It also showed me what I needed to work on and how I should manage my time during future papers.

Conscious of consciousness by minding the mind

I read “Allegory of the Cave” and thought it was a great piece. It was a narrative about a discussion Plato had. In this discussion he describes a situation where people spend their lives in a cave and one man is set free. Throughout the story he makes the point that the reality of one person isn’t necessarily the reality of another. I also read “The Banking Concept of Education” and I believe that it had many smart ideas. The author tries to make the point that the system of education where the teacher simply “dumps” knowledge onto the students. He then poses a better solution to the problem, a solution in which both the students and teacher benefit and learn more than just facts.

Both of these essays are focused on the philosophy of though and perception. In “Allegory of the Cave” it is implied that greater understanding of life in general comes from having a clearer picture of reality. “The Banking Concept of Education” expresses the theory that to have a true education students must see the world not as static and filled with facts, but as a dynamic process which if full of problems and solutions.

It isn’t too complex of a task to memorize facts and equations but I think true advancement can only be attained once an important ability is acquired. This ability is being able to understand that what one thinks is reality isn’t necessarily what is truly real. The reality that a person perceives is called a paradigm. A paradigm can inhibit progress if somebody “knows” that something is impossible. An example of this can be seen in the cave that Plato describes. The people in it believed that what they saw were the only things that existed and they would never be able to move or leave. Perhaps if they had believed that there was possibly something else out there and escape was possible their thinking wouldn’t be so limited and they could have found a way out. I think a good lesson to be learned from these stories is that things are never as limited as they seem if you learn to entertain the idea that the impossible is possible.

Synthesis

The article “Blue-Collar Jobs Disappear, Taking Families' Way of Life Along” and Michael Moore’s documentary were very similar subject matters. The article was about a town in Ohio where many of the major employers were leaving. This meant that many people were laid off and had to get low paying, entry level jobs, if they could get one at all. Moore’s documentary, “Roger and Me,” was about the same concept. The people of Flint, Michigan were all left in a horrible economic condition after a General Motors plant decided to shut down.

Both of these reports focused on small towns that were devastated because of a lack of employment after the status quo changed. The reporting relied on the personal stories of people who became poor to try to emotionally appeal to the audience. The common trend in these towns is that a major employer left and destroyed the local economy. Perhaps it’s not a good idea for towns to rely too heavily on one business or another. The market is always changing and there’s always a chance that a factory will have to shut down or a business will have to relocate. When a town puts all their eggs in one basket it leaves itself open to numerous disasters. The town plays a part in it but business ethics play a large role in these situations too.

It can be argued that these businesses were wrong for just moving and leaving these towns in poverty, an opinion that I, personally, agree with. Businesses have rights too though; it doesn’t seem fair to say that once a factory is made somewhere that they aren’t allowed to close. It also doesn’t seem reasonable for a large factory to close and leave everybody unemployed. I think that the best solution would be that when a large employer closed they offered new jobs, even if the positions were out-of-state, to the people that work there. That may not be a great solution but at least it would help those who are in desperate need of a job. In conclusion, I think that many economic situations are full of compromises where it is very rare that everybody wins.

Blue-Collar Jobs Disappear, Taking Families' Way of Life Along

The article I read was called “Blue-Collar Jobs Disappear, Taking Families' Way of Life Along”. This article was about Jackson, Ohio and the problem they are currently having with good employment. Many major employers in this area have left which means that many people there have to settle for low paying jobs. This is happening because an economic disaster struck the industry in that area years ago and they never fully recovered. This leaves the people in that area with very few options in terms of where to work. One woman said, “If you don't work at Wal-Mart, the only job you can get around here is in fast food.'' Families who used to make enough money to live comfortably now barely scrape by because they have to settle for low paying jobs that can’t fully support them. The article is filled with stories of people who had comfortable lives and were laid off. They all had to move to a low paying job, sometimes two, which requires no skill. Most of the people had done well at their previous jobs and were laid off without warning.

This ties in very closely with what happened in “Roger and Me” to the town of Flint, Michigan. In both areas major employers were removed and this left families living on welfare or just able to make enough money to survive. Also, in both cases nothing is really being done to help solve the problem of unemployment. It’s sad that this is happening in so many places and that the government isn’t taking more action to reduce the poverty that’s taking over towns like these.

"Blue Collar Jobs Disappear, Taking Families' Way Of Life Along"

Roger and Me

I've seen "Roger and Me", by Michael Moore, before but after recently watching the documentary again I appreciated it more than I did last time because I was able to rhetorically analyze what he was doing and why. His documentary is about how there thousands of workers were laid off in a small town when a General Motors decided to close its car plant there. This act almost completely destroyed the small town economically. Moore makes extensive use of pathos and logos in his documentary as he travels around the little town with his camera. His use of logos is especially apparent and helps his case a great deal.

Moore’s most evident use of logos in the film is how he brings up the point that after the auto plant closed the town saw a drastic increase in crime, poverty, and welfare. The best illustration of this is when Nightline tries to do a live news story on the plant closings somebody steals their van which halts the broadcast. Additionally, the sheriff is filmed evicting many of the residents of the town and Moore interviews a woman who sells rabbits as pets and food to be able to scrape by. These are both rhetorically good scenes because the make use of the logos by showing the cause and effect of the plant closing and they evoke a strong emotional response via the pathos at the same time.

The strongest part of the film comes at the end when the GM’s CEO, Roger Smith, is giving a speech near Christmas about generosity. While playing the speech, Moore intersperses scenes of families being evicted from their home as a result of the layoffs. This ending emphasizes the irony of what Smith is saying and reminds the audience that his decision caused a great deal of poverty. Overall, I think that “Roger and Me” was a good documentary and an excellent piece of rhetoric.

Passing Before Life’s Very Eyes

“Passing Before Life’s Very Eyes” was a slightly confusing graphic novel upon the first reading. Once you understand the concept and everything that is going on you begin to realize that this is a very deep and existential. It is essentially a story of an old man on his death bed and his experiences as he slowly fades from conciseness. Wolfgang makes great use of his words and images to appeal to the pathos of his readers throughout the comic.

He starts by making you feel sorry for the old man by showing him alone in a hospital bed with his eyes closed. This connects the reader to the man emotionally by showing his sad situation. You then see the “spirit” of the old man leave his body and go through various past memories of his life. The author appeals to the pathos by showing that the old man had a very fulfilling and joyful life. Wolfgang does this by showing happy and warm scenes such as the old man reading stories to his grandchildren, walking with his wife, playing catch, getting married, and so on. He meets himself as a young boy and his younger self begins to explain what is happening.

Near the end the images make you feel bad for him as you can see he is losing his mind. He begins to talk to himself as a young boy, each frame is wildly different and random compared to the last one and are filled with him in different forms. This tells the audience that he is nearing death, as random memories dominate his thoughts. The final words and page apply very strongly to the pathos. When he asks his younger self what happens after death he replies “More than likely, things just sort of-“ and the next page is blank. The reader is left not feeling sorry for the old man because of death but instead knows that the old man lead a great life and dies in a very content, painless way. I found “Passing Before Life’s Very Eyes” to be an entertaining, interesting and rhetorically sound piece.

The Southland

I thought that The Southland, by Henry Miller, was a well written piece. It is a short essay about the South in the United States. It aims to reach readers of all different backgrounds, genders, and races. It mainly seeks to talk to those who dislike the South for any reason. He tries to convey all the hidden beauty in the South to everybody who has yet to experience it themselves. He does this through the use of vivid imagery throughout the entire essay to try to get the reader to let go of some of their reservations about the South and see it through Miller’s eyes.

All of the imagery in this essay does a great job of appealing to the pathos. He describes the scenery and feeling of the South in a way that gets the reader to momentarily see past their dark history and appreciate the beauty of the land. Miller also makes use of ethos by constantly informing the reader that he visited those places and seen all the sights with his own eyes. He describes visiting and traveling all across the South and makes sure his audience knows he has extensive firsthand experience in the South. Miller doesn’t attempt to appeal to the logos enough, this may be because the beauty he is trying to describe can’t be conveyed though facts. Overall, I think this was a well written piece full of great imagery that kept me interested until the end.

Apple.com Analysis

The website I chose to analyze is Apple’s site. When the page first opens you’re greeted with a large picture of their new notebook and at the top there are a few links to their major product areas. If you scroll down you see a headline ticker and a couple small pictures of some of their newer products. The creator of this page is Apple Inc and this is made fairly obvious by the sleek, simple, businesslike design of the page. They created this website for all their consumers so that they could get the latest information of Apple’s new products directly from the source. Their audience is the consumers and prospective customers. They clearly made this site for them and this purpose because the only things on there are pictures of products and links to more in-depth information about everything.

The main appeal of the website when you first visit is to the ethos. They have their logo and products up in a very plain design. This is meant to show the audience that they are dealing with a professional company who knows what they are doing. The main page does very little to appeal to the pathos but they do try to appeal to the logos. They accomplish this by advertising a couple main benefits of their products. This tries to convince the viewer that this is the best thing to buy and that Apple has a wealth of great products. Overall, I believe that Apple has a very well designed site. They keep it focused on the products and extremely easy to use and navigate.

Blog Analysis

I chose to analyze the blog entitled "Cari." It is a very simply designed blog, with not too many things to catch the eye. This could have been done in order to draw the attention of the viewer further to the content of the posts instead of leaving them looking at images. Cari uses a white background which gives off a slightly professional tone. Although, she changes the color of the text with each post which asserts her individuality and creativity. Overall, this blog seems to show readers that the author is a cheery and creative writer while keeping a professional attitude towards her posts.

Mother Tongue

In Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan, the author talks in detail about one of the aspects of the rhetorical triangle. Through her years as a writer and as the daughter of someone who didn’t speak English very well, she learned that she uses different types of English depending on the audience. When one is writing anything you have to think about who it’s being written for because you don’t speak the same way to every person. In Tan’s case, she speaks very differently depending on if she is talking to her mother or if she’s talking to a group of students. Part of the rhetorical triangle is analyzing who you’re writing to and Tan decided she was going to write everything as if it was meant for her mother. She learned that the English she speaks with her mom is one that is full of imagery and vivid observation. I think she decided to write in this way because she recognized that the way she talks to her mother works well as a captivating writing style, one that can draw the reader in with its simple tone and rich imagery. Reading this has taught me the importance of realizing what “English” you use and writing in a style that achieves the purpose of your writing while keeping your reader interested.

What is a blog?

A blog is a very versatile use of a website. It can be anything from something to promote a company or band to a personal journal. I think a blog is a place where people can share their ideas and experiences with people who get entertainment and knowledge from them. It also creates an online community where people can get relevant feedback from others. I think that blogs are already close to what they should be but they have a little way to go. They could be used for things other than personal discussion. They could not only be used in companies for workers but with experts across entire fields that could be kept up with each other and the new advances in the field instantly through blogs. Additionally, government and nonprofit organizations could have their own blogs which update the public immediately of any relevant happenings, tips, or links to relevant sites. Blogs are definitely becoming more popular every day and they will soon become a very common and play a more important role than they used to. This is going to be a good thing because it will make the exchange of personal ideas happen faster and come from a larger variety of people.