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Peer Review Questions: ePortfolio

1. One place I found interesting is the last paragraph of his bio where he says, “there are always two or more sides to every argument, and sometimes the resolution of an argument can be worse than if the argument never [happened] in the first place”. I found this interesting because it shows the level of care that is taken with his arguments – he knows that speaking up can cause more problems than if he had remained silent One place I found myself confused was the first paragraph of the Bio, where he talks extensively about his parents’ relationship. While he talks about how it taught him that “love can be temporary”, he does not talk about how his parents’ divorce helped to form his religious outlook.

2.  In his first argument, Paris did a good job of covering many different aspects of his overall argument that religion has become a large problem in America. Also in his first argument, he does a good job of concluding it by stating that while religion is not yet dead, it is certainly dying out, saying “God is not dead, but his time is running out”. This is a good mic-drop ending to the essay.

3. Argument 1 is that Christianity has had an overall negative impact on America and Humanity as a whole. Argument 2 is that regardless of religion, faith can still improve an individual’s quality of life and death can still provide peace of mind. At the time of this review, Argument 3 has not been published.

4. Although it is not directly stated, I believe Paris’ theory of writing is that the use of key terms can help to strengthen an argument. This is shown in his second argument when he takes an in-depth look at what the term “faith” means and how it relates to his overall argument. 

5. Ethos is established especially well in a paragraph in the first argument about how religion has been used to control the masses. The various pieces of evidence show that this is a topic that has been well-researched. Pathos is established in the second part of the second argument. To do this, he tells a relatable story of an experience he had with death earlier this year, then uses the emotions evoked by the story to persuade the reader that “the loss of anyone is a loss to us all in the human race” The establishment of logos needs to be more present, this can be done by using more statistics and citing more authorities on each topic. 

6. The comprehensiveness of each argument can be improved upon by outright stating your argument and tying each paragraph back to support this main point. In the first argument, the individual paragraphs each cover their own point but are not tied in with the overarching argument of the essay. 7. Overall, I would suggest paying more attention to the structure of your arguments and connecting each point to the overall claim.

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Sunday Something: Week 10

My body deciding whether or not to stop being sick all week. SO happy I missed half of my week 9 classes fml

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Self-Assessment Reflection

I feel that I have done pretty well in this class. I have attended every class, participated, and posted all (but one) of the homework posts. Although there are times where I post last-minute, I don’t think the quality of my work depends on whether I post the night before or the day of class. One of the main things I have learned in this class is to pay closer attention to the audience and genre of my writing. Who are they? What do they expect? Is there a way to conform to those genre norms while also keeping my writing interesting? My writing reflects who I am as a person – I conform to situational/genre expectations just enough while also trying to stand out in some way. In my Argument 1 essay, I tried to write in a way that a lawmaker might expect: with a variety of research to show the benefits to public health, economic, and national security. I feel that I was better able to adopt the governmental style of writing by reading so much of it while researching the topic, but I also tried to sprinkle in just enough of my personal voice to stand out – something I hope to do better in my final draft. In my introductory post, I said that I hoped to figure out what kind of writer I am, why that is, and whether or not my style/ voice suits me. Although I don’t think my style or voice have changed much by taking this class, I do think that I learned how to better express my voice across a variety of genres. As far as my style of writing, I’ve reassured myself that I am an argumentative writer. This is possibly because I never quite grew out of my childhood frustration with receiving “just because” as an answer and it shows in the way I argue both in person and in my writing. No matter how ignorant or flat out absurd I think the opposing opinion is, I try to refrain from straight up telling the other person that they must be insane for having that opinion. Instead, I try to evidence my opinion as much as possible in order to persuade them that they are looking at it the wrong way. My original theory of writing was that writing was a means by which to convey information – that the author was the teacher and the reader was the learner. This theory later evolved to acknowledge that teaching and learning do not have to be separate processes. The author can teach both themselves and their audience. My theory of writing has not changed much in the past two weeks, but I don’t feel there is a better way to describe my overall theory of academic AND personal writing. Rate my Student: Brian Weir Overall Quality: 4.0 Level of Difficulty: 3.5

Brian can be a very effective writer but can also be very stubborn. Although he often leaves assignments until the last minute, he ensures that the quality of his work is not affected. He is self-aware of the shortcomings in his writing and does whatever he can to address the problem - whether it works out or not. He doesn’t like to simply meet expectations – he wants his work to stand out. However, because of this pursuit, he sometimes gets in his own way and prevents himself from creating much at all.

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Sunday Something: Week 9

My dad wasn’t able to make it out for parents weekend last weekend so he came out to ski for the weekend. Thankfully we got an insane amount of powder and in his excitement, my dad got stuck in a tree well. 

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Let’s have a Moment

Moment 1:  I’m a Computer Science major, which unfortunately means I also have to be a math minor. So far, none of my programs have required much math that can’t be done using basic trig/geometry – making it even harder to find the motivation to walk all the way from Halls to Knudson every day for my Calculus class. While I understand that more advanced programs probably need more advanced math, it’s still been difficult to find a connection between the two at this point. However, as I’ve complained about it more and more, I’m starting to see the connections. The connection up to this point has been mainly the subconscious transfer of knowledge. Similar to how Geoffrey West was able to use Kleiber’s law regarding the metabolism of animals to discover that “if an elephant was just a scaled-up mouse, then, from an energy perspective, a city was just a scaled-up elephant” (Johnson, 10), I discovered that it wasn’t about the math in-and-of-itself that was crucial – it was the logic. West was able to connect two seemingly unrelated studies to discover an eerie similarity. In both math and computer science, every program/problem relies on the application of prior knowledge and the following of a certain logic. While they may not always be directly related to one another, logical skills learned in math can often be applied to computing as well.

Moment 2: 

Last Thursday, we talked in class about what really bugs us. Although we did not share, I wrote that I felt like I never got a chance to be alone. It seems like someone is always in my room. Pretty much every night, my friends come and hang out into my room to hang out while we do our homework. Don’t get me wrong – I love their company and hanging out with them, but I feel a constant need to be entertaining/ social and it just gets exhausting and a bit claustrophobic. The situation has always bugged me, but never enough to really make a big deal out of so I just let it go. But as I thought about the situation more and more throughout the day and over the weekend, I got progressively more frustrated by it. I determined that this was a situation that needed to be addressed -- it had a certain exigence, if you will. Finally, on Saturday I talked to my friends about it and they were very understanding. Since then, the situation has gotten much better. I’m sure that Blitzer would be overwhelmed with pride not only with my responding to what I believed to be a rhetorical situation but also for the correct(?) usage of “exigence”.

Moment 3: My brother and I are currently planning a trip to Vietnam/Cambodia/Thailand this summer to celebrate his college graduation. When we first started, my mom was very supportive of the trip and even offered to help with some expenses. When we would talk to her about the trip she shared our excitement and even gave us suggestions of things to see/ ways to get around. On the other hand, when we would talk to my dad about the trip all we got was a bunch of “okay”s – which was fine. The problem arose when we booked our flights there/back over winter break. This is likely the only case either of us will admit to actually jumping with excitement. When we told my dad the next morning he blew up claiming he hadn’t heard anything about the trip until then and made us cancel the flights. This created quite a bit of tension between the three of us. Finally, a few weeks ago, we had a conference call so my brother can I could plead our case. My dad is a lawyer, so we quite literally pleaded our case. To start, he actually asked us to make opening statements, then we moved to rebuttals, a bit of back and forth, then he prompted us to make closing statements – the unfortunate part is that I’m not exaggerating this. The call, like many disputes between the three of us, did not feel like two sons talking to their dad, it felt like a courtroom where my dad was the prosecution, judge, and jury. My brother and I have always been bothered by this dehumanizing format of discussion, but since it was not the time to bring this problem up, we just leaned into it. Similar to Boyd’s writing exercise, we were put into a rhetorical situation in which we had no formal training and were made to “choose the right diction or even jargon and to strike the right tone” (Boyd 100). By identifying and conforming to the demands of the courtroom genre, we were able to successfully plead our case for the trip and got approval.

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Sunday Something: Week 8

Any chance I can just submit this as my Argument #3?

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Murder! Rhetorically Speaking

Police Report A body was discovered earlier this evening (June 6, 2010) in the local parking garage at 11:30pm. I arrived on the scene at 11:45pm. After the medical examiner pronounced him dead, I was able to inspect the body. The victim had been fatally stabbed 7 times: three in the abdomen, one on the back of the right thigh, and three in the chest. His wallet was found 10 feet from the body, containing only his ID and various business cards – the victim’s name was Mark Smith. The blood on his body and ground was almost completely dry, placing the time of death between 10:30pm and 10:40pm tonight. Considering the wallet’s distance from the body, the current assumption is that Mark Smith was the victim of a mugging-gone-wrong.

Getting in touch with your inner detective

My report begins with the discovery of the body (When the detective would first hear about the crime), and ends with the detective declaring what he believes to be the situation that led to Mark’s murder.

I found myself adding a timeline of relevant events (time of discovery, time on-scene, estimated time of death). I added this to increase the level of clarity given to the reader – whoever that may be. I also found myself adding details about the number/location of the stabs in order to record the damage done to the body. I added the information about the wallet in order to transition to both the revealing of the victim’s name and lead to a suspicion of mugging.

I omitted details about where in the parking garage the body way found – mostly because I had not considered mentioning whether the body was on the ground, in a car, or what floor of the parking garage he was on. I also did not record the position in which the body was found: on his side, face-up, or face-down. This is because I had pictured the scene in my head as the body being face-up on the ground, forgetting to put that detail into words.

I chose words that would be difficult to misinterpret, in-case a defense lawyer in the following trial attempted to discredit the original report

I feel like I took on a very objective and official tone – one that I think would be necessary for an official police report

I ordered my information in chronological order according to when the information was revealed to the detective

I think I “knew” how to write like a detective from watching various police shows/movies.

Coroner Report

The cadaver is 1.78m tall with short brown hair, brown eyes, and otherwise was in good health. There are seven apparent stab wounds found on the cadaver:

a 2mm wide, 76mm deep wound to the Biceps femoris. According to the deep, clean scores on the femur, this was likely the first and most forceful stab

a 1.5mm wide, 40mm deep wound that lacerated the cadaver’s small intestine. Internal damage indicates this stab was faster, shown by the clean incision of the skin.

A second 1.5mm wide, 42mm deep wound, 36mm to the left of the previous wound, similar signature. 

A third 2mm wide, 50mm deep wound, 25mm left and 36mm above the previous wound, the close proximity and speed of these three abdominal wounds indicate they were done very rapidly

A 2mm wide, 75mm deep wound between the 3rd and fourth rib punctured the cartilage and cut into the cadaver’s right lung, causing it to fill with blood, a very forceful blow

A 1mm wide, 6mm deep wound to the sternum left slight fractures and scores in the sternum.

A 1.5mm wide, 5mm deep wound to the heart. The cadaver would have surely lost too much blood by this point, but this was the death blow.

The size and signature of the wounds are consistent with those found produced by a common hunting knife. The strength and angles of the incisions suggest that the stab to the thigh was the first strike, with the three stabs to the abdomen quickly following, and the three stabs to the chest were performed with significantly greater force from a perpendicular angle- suggesting the victim was on the ground with the assailant on top of him.

Eulogy

When I first met Mark, we were in our high school math class – we sat next to each other. It was my first year at FakeSchoolName High and two weeks in I had already felt myself slipping through the social cracks. He came up to me one day and just... talked to me as if we had been lifelong friends. He immediately made me feel welcome with his reassuring voice and laugh that always seemed to be as funny as his jokes. We went on to be best friends in high school, and although we went our separate ways for college, we were always there for each other. Even if we hadn’t spoken for months, we could call one another and pick up right where we left off. I always admired Mark’s ability to have such a calming and reassuring effect on those around him. He will forever be an inspiration and role model to me and it is a tragedy to see him go.

Courtroom closing argument

Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, throughout the course of this trial, we have heard the testimony of the coroner detailing the dimensions of the blade used to commit this heinous murder of an innocent man. We have seen the blade that was recovered from Ted Cruz’s apartment with traces of DNA matching Mark Smith’s. We have seen the credit cards with Mark Smith’s name on them that were found in Ted Cruz’s dresser. We have also seen the CCTV footage from outside the parking garage showing Ted Cruz walking into the garage at 10:20pm, then of him running out of the garage at 10:45pm on the night of the Mark Smith’s murder – placing him at the scene of the crime at the time of Mark Smith’s death. On top of this, we have also seen Ted Cruz’s history of armed robbery with a knife. However, it is now up to you – will the senseless murder of an innocent man go unpunished, or will you see to reason that Ted Cruz is to be found guilty for his crimes against not only Mr. Smith but the safety of society as a whole?

Discussion

I found the original police report to be the easiest to write because I felt I had the most freedom to add new details about the crime itself rather than elaborate on previously mentioned details. 

I found the coroner’s report to be the most difficult to write because it required a medical elaboration of the previously added details and a conclusion about what the angles/depth/size of the stabs meant.

The rhetorical situation of academic writing demands a command of the information being presented, and the ability to defend a position against rebuttals. The audience of academic writing can vary depending on what kind of paper/report is being written. For example, my Argument 1 essay challenges a law -- making the audience largely consist of lawmakers. Because laws are made based mostly on research, precedent, health, and public opinion, I focused on those things to target what lawmakers consider to be important when making a decision.  The tone of academic writing is one of authority, if you are trying to persuade someone to agree with you, it’s much more difficult to do so if the author does not have a perceived authority over their topic. The jargon needed for academic writing can vary in the same ways the audience can – it depends on the topic and goals of the writing. The information that might be included and/or rejected is also heavily reliant on what kind of information the audience would deem important.  

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First-year Writing & Learning

The transfer of learning/ knowledge can be very important for students, especially during the transition from high school to college. If a student is able to take what they have learned from one class and apply it to another they are able to have a deeper understanding of both topic. In my own experience, knowledge transfer has come in many forms. Whether it be using the same logical reasoning between solving a math problem and writing code, using similar study habits across classes, or applying test-taking skills learned in preparation for the ACT/SAT to taking college exams, the transfer of learning and knowledge has been very helpful. During the first year of college, students with various forms of prior education are held to the same standards – which can be very challenging for some. However, if a student is able to transfer different skills and knowledge from the years leading up to that point, they are better able to take on the challenge. However, knowledge/ learning transfer is not always a conscious process. I have mostly noticed this subtle transfer within my writing style. I’m a film nerd. Whether it be directing, acting, or screenplay writing – I love it. But I have noticed that while it is almost never a conscious act, I’ve noticed that I’ve become more critical of my own writing: paying more attention to subtext, double meaning, and dialogue. Despite the fact that I have never really studied screenplays, by simply paying attention to how a writer can evoke emotion and tension, I have occasionally seen certain aspects of my writing reflect those styles.

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Sunday Something: Week 7

Something I am ordinary at: sports.

Pictured: me tripping and falling on my ass

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Subtle Art Reflection #5

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Maps: take 2

My map represents my understanding of writing in that all of the mini-doodles (data, anecdotes, quotes, etc.) come together to form the bigger picture (the piece of writing). To me, writing is a means of expression. Similar to how Johnson states that “we can understand something better by studying its behavior in different contexts”, I can understand myself better by expressions via different mediums: like drawing or writing. I believe that much like Bazerman and Tinberg’s claims about writing, drawing, too, is an expression of embodied cognition. After drawing my map, I realized that it is very similar to most of my other doodles. I fear that this might hold true for my writing as well – I tend to stick to the same style. The only problem with that is that I still like my doodles. Although they may stick to the same patterns and styles, I still enjoy my doodles/writing. If my style of writing and drawing go unchanged, is that a problem if I still enjoy them? Don’t get me wrong- I have tried different styles of both, but after much frustration, I always end up coming back to what it previously was.

A visual representation of my key term can be very beneficial. By drawing our key term of writing, we are forced to reflect on our own style and priorities in writing via a different medium; since we have become accustomed to describing our theory of writing, it’s become ineffective. Instead, we were asked to draw our theory of writing. By reflecting on our theory in different terms, we are better able to learn about our own style. However, my theory of writing remains unchanged after this activity: writing is a process by which the author both teaches themselves AND their readers.

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Revision vs. Editing

I really liked what one of the experienced writers had to say about revising – that “a piece of writing is never finished, just abandoned” (7). I think this is a very good way to look at the relationship between writing and revision: that the only thing the determines when a piece of writing is “done” is a deadline or when the author gives up on trying to improve it. Sommers uses a continued comparison between speech and writing in her paper. You know all of those things that fly through your head following a spoken argument that you realize would have been perfect had you thought to say them at the time? That’s what revision is in writing. Revision is crucial to good writing because it helps to structure the final product. I was always told by teachers in high school that the difference between revising and editing was scale: editing focuses on grammar, sentence structure, word choice, and punctuation, while revision focuses on the overall style, formatting, argument, and flow of the paper. I believe this distinction between the two still holds well. However, simply knowing the difference between the two does not mean we properly learned how to revise. In several English classes I was taught how to conduct peer-reviews, but too often was this mistaken with making simple edits. While an outside opinion at the high-school-level is always helpful, I believe that these peer review exercises were limited by the students’ fear of telling their friend to delete/ rewrite large amounts of text. On the professional level, however, the editor of a newspaper has actual authority over what his journalists produce – giving him/her not only a guilt-free opportunity but an obligation to tell his/her journalists what to change. Within my own revision process, I think I can benefit from “stepping away” from my writing for a period of time before revising it. This is for the same reason mentioned by one of the experienced writers: “I am much more in love with something after I have written it than I am a day or two later” (7). Too often I find myself putting off a writing assignment so long that I can no longer take the time to step away before revising, instead opting to revise as I go.

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Reflecting on Reflection

Reflection is the process done by writers to improve the overall quality of their work. According to Yancey, this can be broken into three processes: “1. Goal-setting, revisiting, and refining; 2. Text-revising in the light of retrospection; 3. The articulating of what learning has taken place, as embodied in various texts as well as in the processes used by the writer” (11). It is commonly known that going over material after learning it (going over notes, correcting tests, etc.) gives a better understanding of the topic – and Yancey is sure to note that this is part of the reflection process. By reflecting on what we have just learned – or written – we can become more effective learners and writers. In class, this is commonly done via a class discussion; no, these aren’t always done to prove to the teacher that the students actually read, it’s the teacher helping the students reflect and better learn the material. Within my own writing, reflection comes in multiple stages. Let’s take the case of an academic research paper. By reflecting on the prompt and how it does/doesn’t relate to me, I can begin to formulate my own argument. Once I’ve conducted my research, I reflect on how each piece can be used in my writing – how/where could this fit into my essay? While I write, I am constantly re-reading my essay to ensure understandability, flow, and cohesiveness. Once I’m done, a full-scope reflection takes place where I put myself in the shoes of someone who is reading it for the first time – does the included information make sense? Did I leave anything out? Were there questions left unanswered? In slight contrast to my original theory of what writing was – where the author was teaching something and the reader was learning something – I would now say that these do not have to be separate processes. I would now claim that writing is a process by which the author both teach themselves AND their readers. In MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, he articulates multiple emotions of anger, impatience, and oppression into his writing. Perhaps by writing his letter, MLK was not only teaching others, but himself to stay persistent in his fight for equality.

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Sunday Something: Week 6

Happiness is being totally okay with how much better my friends are at parks than me - see if you can guess which clip is me

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(En)trencement

You are what you eat read.

Similar to how someone’s life experiences influence who they are as a person, what you read influences who you are as a writer. While the content of the writing will depend on the prompt, the style of writing will be influenced the reading. Consider your favorite movie/show, you know, that one you have to lie about how many times you’ve seen because the truth is way too many times. How has this influenced your sense of humor? The way you tell stories? While the movie/show itself may not have had a major impact on your life, it has likely influenced your mannerisms and speech in some way. It often shows what kind of reading a person enjoys when reviewing how they write. When presenting a troubling statistic: a satirical reader may make light of it – allowing the contrast of tone and content to accentuate the larger point; a reader of classic novels may offer extreme detail to show the severity of the situation. Either way, the same point is being conveyed, but depending on the reading habits of the writer, can be portrayed in various ways. The same way the place you grow up affects your accent in speech, the genre or authors you favor affects your voice in writing. Reading may have a relatively minor impact on who you are as a person, but it shows in writing and storytelling.

Also, enjoy this completely unrelated stock photo I found while procrastinating. 

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Where Good Ideas Come From

I feel that many of my good ideas (writing or otherwise) occur to me in times of peace: the calm of a morning sunrise over a sandbar, the stillness of a parking garage skatepark at midnight, the muteness of the depths of the ocean, the isolation of a two street town, and the background murmurs of a coffee shop. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that my examples of “peace” all involve a form of disconnection from the world I’m in. Someone who doesn’t drink coffee in a coffee shop; a human in the endless blue void that is the ocean; a tourist in a place I could never pronounce quite right; a kid who hasn’t skated a day in his life admiring the beauty of a hidden skatepark in the middle of the night. Johnson acknowledges that “we can understand something better by studying its behavior in different contexts”. I can relate to this personally in the form of my travel journal. I’ve tried to keep a daily journal before and found myself dreading having to write the daily entry - but when I limited it to a travel journal, I found myself looking forward to writing every day. Not because days become more interesting on vacation, but because I found myself out of my comfort zone - my usual context if you will. In the middle of my collage, I’ve included a drawing of mine. I drew this shortly after returning from a trip with 19 other kids I hadn’t previously met. Some of them have become my best friends - and we would have never met if it weren’t for our common interest in this trip. I drew this somewhat absent-mindedly, as it’s just a collection of my usual doodles. But looking at it now, I see what Johnson means about connecting ideas - each of the individual doodles on their own is interesting but unimpressive, however once when they are connected, they create what has become one of my personal favorite doodles. I also don’t believe it is a coincidence that my favorite drawing of mine was done shortly after this trip of 20 people and consists of me unconsciously connecting 20 of my favorite doodles. 

My good ideas come from new experiences and abandoning my comfort zone.