So Long

A Note On Group Work
Like most students, when I came to the first day of class and found out about the large group project I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I have been in too many groups where no one was willing to do any work or even begin to brainstorm on topics for projects. Me, being the slacker that I am at times, can’t stand groups like this; I am willing to pull my weight but only if others are willing to do the same. If this isn’t a problem something else usually is. I have had experiences where a topic can’t be agreed upon, or where an individual’s style of work doesn’t mesh at all. But this may be the point of group work, getting students to work together even when their personalities clash.
My group in this class was an exception to my past experiences. While I do feel like we might have been able to come up with a more interesting and unique topic, I also think that we did well with what we chose. Maybe because, at least I would say, we were all fairly relaxed students we worked well together. I also think it could be because our group was chosen for us, based on our writing, rather than randomly putting members of the class into groups. Regardless of the reason this was my best experience working in a group.
Throughout the semester I think we became more aware, as a group, of our individual differences. In many cases this would have made our group project harder, but that was not the case here. As we became more aware of our differences we also became more accepting of those differences. This caused us to work even smoother together. Overall the group work to turned out to be a fulfilling experience.
I can safely say the same about the class as a whole. I enjoyed the class session because they left plenty of room for discussion and were very interactive. I also enjoyed the blog as the prompts were interesting and made me think about things in different ways, as well as making me think about things I never thought about before. The blogs also did the job of making us write more frequently, which is necessary to becoming a better writer.
I learned some practical things in this class, such as gaining a little more familiarity with grammatical rules. I also learned some things about myself as far as how to keep myself in check when I completely disagree with what other people in class are saying. Overall, the group work was the highlight of the class, but there were no low lights.
Until Next Time
Tractor

Full Stop

Because I am finally done with college. This is my last ever academic assignment, though I have to admit I am still not that good in writing blog after 15 weeks of practicing. Now, I am two finals away from my big milestone this weekend.

I have to say that Eng201 is one of my many classes that I did not anticipate very much at first but surprisingly end up learning many new things. I really enjoyed attending the class even though I was normally quiet in class. I love going class and just listened to others as there are still so many things I am still learning about this country and culture here. Other than that, my first ever blog was in this class. Not to mention I have never blogged before, not even in my best language, Chinese. I have to admit I was a little annoyed to blog and respond every week at first. After few practices, I think I blogged more fluently now. However, I still feel blogging is not something I will do naturally due to my personality. I also enjoyed more in writing after taking this class. Not only discovering many kinds of writing style other than academic research paper, but also few things to notice when listening to a speech. All these skills make my listening experience more pleasurable and interesting. In the end, other than surviving all the amount of writing in this class, I am glad I did learn a lot out of this class.

This class also sums up my two and half year experience in the States. I worked as a group, practiced on different kinds of writing, had class in and out of classroom, and listened to many public issues. I even think my class began and ended at the same building, as I took ESL117 in my first semester and now another writing class, which both were in Helen C. White.
Now leaving school, I am still unsure where my future lies ahead as I still have not found a full time job. One thing I have already planned is taking a break and visit around. Somehow the current flu epidemic has rendered my planned. Hopefully, things will still work out as planned. My family is coming for my graduation. I am excited; they have a chance to know my life here and enjoy this nice Madison. After that, we are visiting California and I will fly to Europe to visit my brother and some friends before going back home. If any of you have the chance to visit Malaysia, I am more than happy to guide you around.

Coming here is definitely not a choice to regret of. I have so much experience and stories to share with friends back home now. The whole experience here is really great. I have made many good friends, which I know they will be lifelong. I have visited many beautiful places in the States, the East coast and a totally crazy road drive to Las Vegas. I have experienced the party culture in Madison, of course, the Halloween State Street and Mifflin block party that I never missed. Every experience is priceless and will be remembered for life. Now, I am moving on to the next stage of my life. Out of school, I wish I could still enjoy as much as I could.


Until next time,
CY

What I've Learned..

My time in English 201 this semester was nothing short of a very pleasurable learning experience. Going back to high school, I had always been one who enjoyed writing and crafting language, and because of this I took all of the English courses including AP English courses that I could. This class brought back a lot of the good memories I have about writing from a few years ago. While there was a good amount of writing assigned to us through the blog posts and various papers, we weren’t so overwhelmed with work that it took the enjoyment out of the craft. Everything in the class was balanced just right, and I will therefore look back at it with fond memories.
I’ve also made a very profound decision recently, and it’s no coincidence that I was currently enrolled in this course at the time it came. I have switched majors, and am pursuing a goal of graduating with an English degree, and there after getting a teacher’s certificate, with hopes of teaching high school English. This is no small happening considering I had been dead set on graduating with a degree in Kinesiology for a number of years; but no more. I can look back to a good deal that occurred in this course and use it as a guide when I begin teaching my own classes down the road. The amount of freedom that we were able to have during the course of the semester was a real breath of fresh air, and a much needed break from the usual set of unbreakable rules and guidelines. This freedom of a hard set of rules often goes hand in hand with a freedom that is given to our imagination, allowing our true creativity to shine through. This was indeed the case for me, and very likely many of my other class mates. Without a doubt, the time that I invested every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon was well spent. There’s no question that I have a stronger confidence in my writing, and also a new found confidence to teach others and guide them in their very own writing endeavors.

All in all, I am very content with what I have taken from this course, and I hope that everyone would agree.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to read my blogs this spring, and I wish all of you a great summer.

Until we meet again,

DP

What Guides Me..

In the past, writing always seemed to me to be more of a chore than an enjoyable activity. Mid-way through high school this changed. The particular English class that I took that year had a lasting influence on me as a writer, and many of the personal rules and regulations that I now hold myself to emerged because of it. The “A Completely Idiosyncratic, Slightly Off-Beat, and Potentially Helpful Collection of Writing Advice” worksheet that our teacher Christine Stephenson gave us lists many of the rules that I already adhered to.
Rule #1: The better you understand the rules, the more liberated you are from them.
In the English Composition class that changed my ways as a writer, the first thing that our teacher beat into our heads was the proper use of grammar and language in our writing. At first, the amount of time that we were spending on it seemed obnoxious, but in hindsight, her way of teaching made sense. Before you can truly blossom as a writer, you need to know the simple do’s and don’ts of language. Then, and only then, can you use your creativity to its fullest and most uninhibited extent. It was no coincidence that after she felt that our class had a good grasp on the rules, she then sought to emphasize the second portion of Rule #1. Thanks to her method of teaching, I now firmly know the regulations imparted by the English language and can creatively stretch the rules in order to allow my writing to have a larger impact on my audience.
Rule #2: Heed this gruesome advice: murder your darlings.
This is another very important rule that I hold myself to. The more and more I’ve worked with writing and language in general, the more I have come to understand that one should always strive to achieve “quality over quantity”. Economical use of language is hugely important, because not only can you get to your point faster, but the point that you are trying to make is made more effectively because of it. It is indeed true that “culling your hard work may be the toughest of [them] all”, but it is without a doubt worth the time and effort to perfect your craft. When this idea was first imparted to me, following its principles was a tough task to say the least, but as anything else, the more one practices, the better one gets. This has been true for me, and I look forward to improving even more as time goes by.
Rule #3 Read!
To be perfectly honest, this is a rule that up until the point, I haven’t adhered to. It has always been something that I’ve wanted to do more of, and I put this as my number three rule, because I am making it a goal to go out of my comfort zone and read on a consistent basis. I know for a fact that if I stick to my pledge, my writing will improve. The more one reads, the more he/she is exposed to as far as different writing styles go. I believe that to improve one’s craft, one should observe others who have already become successful in their field. It’s just like job shadowing. The more you observe others, the greater knowledge pool you will have from which to draw your own ideas and conclusions.

WoW does time fly...

It is weird how time flies by so fast. Four months ago I was thinking ugh I have to blog, I’m so bad at blogging. Now, four months later, I am writing my last blog. It is sad almost how fast semesters fly by; especially the last few weeks. You never really have time to enjoy the classes your in because our lives are so hectic with projects, papers and projects. It’s almost annoying that students can’t just sit and learn from a class. I mean we can, but there’s so much added pressure with assignments, papers, midterms, that there is no time to enjoy the material. You are always worrying about your grade, or missing a side note that a teacher made in lecture. You go to class, scribble down every word the teacher says (if your paying attention that day) then you leave, memorize what the teacher says, memorize other notes from different classes, go to bed and do it all again the next morning. Luckily, this class was more hands on and didn’t have a lot of that.

This is one of the classes that I am actually sad is over. I hate to admit it, but I really enjoyed this class. English and composition classes always are my favorite. I’m a nerd though and love writing papers. I like writing papers that make my mind have to work, that sort of push me out of the boring student essay bubble and that’s what this class did. I think that was my favorite part of the writing assignments. We were free to do almost anything we wanted to write about; which was good for me, because I always feel so constricted when teachers give out specific topics and guidelines. I could write how I wanted, and about what I wanted, without being boxed in like other teachers do.

I think that this class has really helped me as person, not just as a student. This may sound a lot like my introduction to our portfolio but it’s true. Working with a cohort all semester has really been a great experience. I liked that I had other people to collaborate with and learn from. I didn’t just go to a lecture, sit and leave, I got to interact and form a bond with a group throughout the year. I’m normally a bit OCD about certain things, especially school, and it working with the three other guys has really helped me to chill a bit. The cohort taught me to be patient with other people, and that my opinion isn’t the only one that matters.

After a semester it is really cool to see the result of four months worth of work. The four of us started out in the computer lab trying to think of any random name to name the blog and now we have developed a unique voice and personality. We were just four random people who were put together in a group and now we are the New Standard of Normalcy. A group with such different people, who have different perspectives on anything, yet, we managed to make a pretty interesting portfolio, blog and semester project. We are one group, but at the same time our individuality shows in everything we do as a cohort.

I am defiantly going to take a lot of what I learned in this class out into the real world. And like I said before, this class is one of the few that have offered me that option. I feel like in a lot of my classes I lose the information I retain because I don’t have enough time to soak it in but in this class I did. I have learned a lot about me as a writer, and what I like write specifically. It was a great experience, and it’s sad that it is over, but life's got to keep moving!

So until next time,
CS

Writing tips that work for me

Learning English as my second language, I see myself write best in structured essay, such as research and argument paper. Probably due to the way I am educated in my early school year. Writing is not my strongest subject in school. It always takes me quite some time to write a piece of paper. Thus, I have come across few writing tips that have helped me in some way.

First, talk with people. My writing skills have greatly improved since I come to the States, especially during the semester I stayed in the dorm. When I am surrounded with Americans, this only English-speaking environment has forced me to express myself in the common language. That semester has not only polished my speaking skills but also helped me to think in English more often, which eventually improve my writing process. Back home, the only place I have conversation in English is in English classes. Even having friends that speak only English, the language and practice are still different than how it is spoken here. My dorm mates have definitely helped me a lot though I always had to repeat my sentences at first or just listened to their conversation. I believe that the easier way to learn a language is live in the environment that uses the language most often. Of course, that is me who come from a different background. I think conversation will help one’s writing more fluently and also motivate a writer to explore something else. The paper will cover more grounds by knowing more people’s thoughts. Experience has now played a big part in my writing. Thus, by talking to different people or just listening to others will enhance one’s ideas on writing.

Next, I need to jot down my points before I start writing. Since I write directly on my computer, I normally just brainstorm all my ideas in short sentences in a blank document for the first hour. Then I will start skipping around to expand my points whenever I think of something. Whether it is in a grammatically correct sentence or makes sense, I will just jot down whatever come through my mind. I think I like doing my paper on computer is it is easy to edit. Unlike writing on a paper, which sometimes gets untidy and hard to keep track, writing on computer is more structured. After that, I will take a break then start writing my paper.

Personally, I can’t write in a quiet room, so I need to listen to some music or switch on the TV so that I know time is ticking while I’m writing. It is just a habit that I could now even seat still for a period of time. The music or TV should not be too loud, just as a background noise. If it gets too loud, it will distract my attention and get annoying. For instance, I am watching the NBA game while I am writing this blog. Of course, it will take me longer to write a paper. So, I will time myself if I am in a rush or just plan to write earlier. I think I sometimes just spend too much time writing, which I know many people could not afford it. However, it somehow helps me write better in term of the flow of the essay.

One more thing is be comfortable when you are writing, whether it is seating under the sun, lying on the bed, or drinking coffee. Once you feel comfortable sitting in front of the computer or paper, it is when your ideas come flow. At last, everyone have different writing tips that work, but revising more than twice is the least required steps. No matter how well one writes, he or she must have revised that paper more than once. I believe revising is much more important than crafting. So, instead of going through a paper once, be make sure you have enough time to revise repeatedly before handing in the paper.

Write Like You MEAN It

When it comes to my writing style I don’t have grammar rules informing me on good style and good structure. I don’t say this because I think I am above the rules, I say this because for multiple reasons I have never been given what I feel is a concrete understanding of grammar. Either I am lazy, or public education has failed me, probably a combination of the two. I was home schooled until the eighth grade. My school day usually consisted of writing my name and the date and an hour or so of math. Then I would study whatever topic I felt like after the mandatory part of the day was done. I don’t remember once going over any grammar; I think I learned nouns, adjectives and verbs from playing Madlibs. I feel like some of this must have been covered while I was in High School, but I got bored with that and quit paying attention pretty quick.

That being said I try to follow the rules the best that I can, but at the same time I try and let my thinking flow smoothly allowing me to unconsciously use words that make the most sense together. Obviously I am not doing that very well right now because what I have typed so far doesn’t make much sense. Another thing I think happens to me when I just let myself right without thinking too hard is that I combine random things in metaphors and strange exaggerations. I think there are so many words out there that it is pointless to limit yourself in your use of words. Every time you write something you shouldn’t have trouble conveying your thoughts in a unique and different way.

I also let my values and morals guide my writing. My values and morals come from my life experiences, which have been fairly intense at times. With that being said I think I try and us words to convey the intensity of situations rather than just stating things in a matter of fact way. For example, rather than saying getting hit by a car hurt it would no doubt be more effective to say “it felt more like a train the car was moving so fast and that I have never felt the crushing blow of pain with so much force ever before in my life. This may be a bit over the top, but you get my point. Again I say why limit yourself when there are no limits.

I would say my life experience has also given me a good idea of what is important in life. This is another characteristic I take into account when writing. I think this pertains more to content than style and grammar. What I like to think while writing a paper is would I ever want to read this again, will my professor want to vomit in their mouth while reading this and isn’t there anything actually worth saying being said here? As college students we are required to spit out paper after paper year round so without a doubt we have all written those papers that we can’t wait to turn in and never see again. Still most of us have written a paper or two we are actually proud of. It is these papers that are obviously guided by something within us that we feel a real attachment to. Whether it is a creative non-fiction piece like the one for this class where you are writing something that is personally significant to you, or it is a paper within your major that actually tweaks your interest. These are the papers that whether we consciously see it or not are guided by our internal voice and values. These are the papers we actually care about because they reflect who we are.

If I reread a paper I have written in the past and it at least seems like it is following grammatical rules and if my use of language is unique and reflects some part of my personality I am proud of it. If the writing doesn’t reflect any of these characteristics chances I will never reread it and I have already forgotten I wrote it.

Writting tips that I like and dislike

I love to write, and for this reason I take into consideration almost all information and tips to improve my writing. I think my personal favorite rule off of the A completely Idiosyncratic, Slightly Off-Beat and Potentially Helpful Collection of Writing Advice by Christine Stephenson is number one. ‘The better you understand the rules, the more liberated you are from them’. I normally write words that fit closest to how I would talk. I think that it gives a little life to whatever it is you are writing. This rule though makes me not feel so bad about breaking some general writing rules. A lot of times I writing a certain way on purpose because I want it to roll off the tongue or sound a certain way when somebody is reading it. It may not be grammatically correct, but it is how I want the composition or whatever it may be to be read.

I also like rule number six. ‘Grammar is a part of language… and it can be fun (like a puzzle)’. Depending on what I am writing I like to play with commas and semicolons to make a thought sound a certain way on paper. I think it is kind of fun because it’s almost like my thought process is being written down on paper, exactly how I am thinking it, so people can read exactly what and how I am thinking. Sometimes I probably get carried away with this but sometimes commas and such are just cool to have to change the flow of a paper.

My favorite quote off the sheet is “The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock proof shit detector” by Earnest Hemingway. I always think about something similar to this when I am turning in papers. I had a teacher once that told me that if you think a paper is bad, then it is. I am almost paranoid about turning in papers that I think are bad now because of that teacher but it is true. Personally, if I don’t like a paper that I have written it’s because I just couldn’t get the idea that I wanted on to the paper. So if I’m unhappy with it, the reader must be unhappy with it. Now, if I honestly hate what I have written I just throw it away and start again on a clean slate. It would be nice though to have some detector that could just tell me the negative qualities of my paper. It’s funny though that there is a similar quote to what a writing teacher had told me a few years ago.

There are some tips that I don’t like though. I especially don’t like when I get a paper back with red marks everywhere with things scratched out and some grammar changed. Yes, big grammar mistakes are ok to mark, but sometimes teachers just don’t read papers and grade them based on the style in which they are written. Like I talked about with rule #1, sometimes I mean to make certain grammar mistakes, but when I teacher red markers all the mistakes it gets a little irritating because it means they aren’t reading your paper with complete attention. I think that sometimes teachers just do not spend enough time grading papers. They can quickly mark an entire paper in red, but they don’t have the time to just sit and try to understand why we wrote how we did. Either that or they just don’t care to spend the time at all because the paper should be a typical, boring, straight edged college essay.

In general though, tips on writing are always interesting. One new tip can completely change or add to a writing style. It’s interesting though because if I like the tip, I remember it and use it in future papers. Either way though, tips and suggestions are always good, because they can help you understand the writer that you are and how to improve your writing; and there’s always room for improvement.

UW's Regulations on marijuana

Our final project is based on UW's regulation on marijuana and whether or not student's are fully aware of the rules. We originally started the project looking at legalizing marijuana on campus but soon realized that there was a much bigger topic involved with marijuana on college campuses. So, we decided to clear up the gray area involved with UW's regulations on marijuana. We surveyed students and it became clear that almost no student's knew the actual consequences of being caught with marijuana on campus. Now, our goal is make it clear to the students what the real consequences are for example losing your financial aid or getting kicked out of the dorms. Our project will eventually be turned into a youtube video so that we can see other student's opinions on the matter.

Confidence is Everything

What engages me?
While I admit that the following answer is rather bland and somewhat clique, the one attribute that grasps my focus more than anything else is unshakable self-confidence. You may have heard people say, “confidence is everything”, and while it may not be “everything”, it is without a doubt the majority of any battle, whether it be a presentation, interview, or one’s goings in day to day life. It’s no coincidence that some of the world’s most successful people today, including the highly adored president of the United States, are also individuals who without a doubt have a high level of self-confidence. The fact that a conservative Republican such as myself becomes highly enamored whenever left-wing President Obama steps to a podium speaks towards the entrancing power that a person who communicates with a sense of self-assurance has over me.

To expand upon this, I look towards President Obama’s acceptance speech as a further explanation. Although at this point on election day I was disappointed with the night’s occurrences, I was willing to listen to what the newly elected President of the United States had to say. While a portion of what he spoke about was debatable and disagreeable in my mind, I went to bed that night conceding the fact that what I had just witnessed was very powerful and moving. The way that Barack Obama held himself and spoke to the people of the country on that night has left a lasting impression on me. I now look to this display as a model of the kind of self confidence I wish to exude when I have to speak to an audience, whether it be for school work or a church function.

Finally, I should speak towards my own personal experiences with self confidence and how this has led me to have all the more respect for someone who has it. In all honesty, I’ve always been a person that has struggled with self confidence. All throughout grade school and high school, I was more reserved and quiet than I’d like to admit, mostly because I lacked a sense of self-assurance, or confidence. While this isn’t totally uncommon for most people to have periods of their lives where they lack self-esteem or self-confidence, it just goes to show that confidence in ones self is often fleeting, and without a doubt harder to have and develop than you’d think. For this reason, those who have mastered this area of their self-being garner high respect from me, and often inspire me to strive and improve myself in this regard, and in other important areas of my life.

Weird Is Where It's At

What Engages Me?
This is a hard question. If something is truly engaging we are probably not aware of how engaging it really is because we are engage by it; consumed and unaware of our surroundings. It is hard to recall this feeling because like I said if you are thinking about being engaged you are obviously not that engaged. I recently saw Fast & Furious, and frankly I don’t know where to put this on the spectrum of engagement. For one the plot was awful and involved an uncalled for, unexpected, out of nowhere “plot twist” every five minutes. At the same time I don’t and never had an interest in cars beyond if they could get me from point A to point B. Top that all off with some awful acting, CGI effects and random car chases that makes no sense and there you have it a hit action movie, or one car chase after another. Yet this movie is making millions of dollars and I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it even a miniscule amount. At the end of the day this isn’t my cup of tea, but it still engaged me enough to laugh and wonder once again how blockbusters came to be the incoherent mess that they are.

Still Fast & Furious is nowhere near the pinnacle of my onscreen entertainment. Call me a sucker but my most regularly watched TV show is America’s Funniest Home Videos; I would also say that this one of the fastest hours of my week. I don’t know what is better than a montage of people getting hit with balls while standing on giant balls, kids running through glass doors and generally anything dumb that anyone has ever caught on tape. Maybe I have a short attention span; maybe I need to grow up and start watching more news shows, but really I don’t think so; there is nothing better than a solid hour of bloopers to end the day. Maybe it is the laughing that causes it to be so engaging, or maybe it is the fact that my roommates and I all watch it together. AFV could be the newest form of male bonding.

Really though this brings up two interesting things to consider when thinking about what engages us. Not only do we need to consider the speaker, but we also need to consider the environment and the physical reactions a speaker may cause us to have. Take Barack Obama for example; we have all seen him speak on TV in front of thousands, but the feeling that gives us is nowhere near the feeling I got when I was crammed in the Kohl Center with my peers hearing him speak. Humans are a social species; I can’t speak for us all but I think in most cases we are more engaged if we are with friends and can not only be engaged but also further our relationships by being engaged in the same thing. Along with being engaged as a group our reactions are different in a group setting compared to when we are alone. Laughing by yourself is not the same as laughing with your friends. Laughing by yourself might make you feel weird more than anything. On the other hand, if you are in a group and you know that everyone in the room is feeling the same way you are then the feeling only becomes stronger. In essence what I am saying is that the larger the group you are in and also if the group is similar to you; then you will be more engaged.

For me this question goes much farther than what engages me. We need to consider why and how just as much as what it is that engages us. Bloopers, absurdist humor and anything that generally pushes or crosses the “line” is what engages me most. “Embrace your weirdness” as that man said; I couldn’t agree more. I don’t see the point in watching the same old laugh track sitcom because they are all the same. When I really want to be engaged and forget about my problems, I like most college kids I know, dig into the depths of Youtube for those moments that were never supposed to happen or were never supposed to be filmed. Normal is boring and overrated; weird is where it’s at.

Capture the Experience

I come from a place where there is no snow, no seasons changing, and no temperature difference beyond ten degrees the whole year. One may start imagining such place and relate it to Hawaii, but I can continue describe that my place is no way near the beauty of the island. One will sweat walking on the street and not even stand of the heat and humid of the place. Someone who has never been to those places will have trouble figuring how it feels to stay there. Just as same as me when people tell me the beauty of white snow and a huge surface covered by white snow that I have never seen before I came here. I can only refer to images I saw in movies, but I can hardly feel the snowflakes dropping on my skin and the feeling stepping into snows because it needs to be experienced by myself.

So the question is can language capture the enormity of an experience? Most of the part is my answer. You not only need the sense of feeling to participate in an experience, but also the cognitive ability to make sense of the experience. With that, each person has his or her own understanding of an experience described in words. Looking at words on a piece of paper or listening to sentences spoken through the space, the audiences may have difficulties in totally understand and feel the experience the same way as the writers and speakers. Language can never recreate experience by it own, no matter how precise and accurate the words chosen to illustrate the event. However, we cant ignore the usefulness and significant of language to commute experience.

Language acts as a median to deliver experience to others. Without language, we cant even keep those experience we had as record our selves. Words help people remember and summarize the experience. It can encourage other people to experience other things themselves. People relate the experience they listen or read to the experience they have. Language is by far the only way to learn about other experience as humans communicate using all kinds of languages. I know three kinds of languages, but I am sure I wont be able to tell my own experience thoroughly with any of the languages.

People try to close the gap between experience learned and imagined by going through the experience themselves. But with a little bit of imagination and own experience of the audiences, they themselves can recreate their own unique experience. And, language simplifies the process of recreating an experience.

Words Can't Recreate an Experience

The question of whether or not writing and language can capture experience is a tough question to answer. In my opinion, a reader can capture some sort of experience through writing and language. However, the reader won’t have the same experience as the author because the reader will lack the feelings that the author had felt during whatever experience. To me, experience is mostly feeling. It is what went through a person’s mind during that particular moment. That feeling, that idea that crossed the person’s mind is the experience. For example, in the Lone Survivor the reader gets a great idea of what Marcus Luttrell’s emotions, ideas, and thoughts were during his time in Iraq but the readers will never know his thoughts at every moment. We will never know exactly what crossed his mind when he realized he was the only survivor of his Navy SEAL team. We will never know what exactly his body felt like, or the pain he went through. Yes, we can image and develop a general understanding from reading his book, but we can’t say that we have had the same experience as Luttrell. The reader can have an experience while reading a book such as Lone Survivor. They would have ideas and emotion’s that cross their head while scanning the words, but it would be an experience unique to that person.

If two people are reading the same book, like the example before with Lone Survivor, they will have two completely different experiences. A person’s experience comes from their previous experiences, their ideas, thoughts; everything about the person can affect their experience. This is why I think that the experience that an author would want to share with his or her readers will never be portrayed exactly as they felt it the first time. The overall idea can be shared, but never the whole experience. The ideas, feelings and emotions that are unique to an individual also make experiences unique and unreplicable.

My boyfriend and I recently went to Mexico, just the two of us. We spent every waking moment together, at tours, swimming on the beach, enjoying the nearby town but when somebody asks us how our trip was, we both answer in two completely different ways. I say “oh it was great! I loved the beach.” When my boyfriend answers he takes more of an anthropological approach and talks about the poverty and the people in the area that we visited. We had the exact vacation, but we have two different experiences. Mine, mainly on a sunny beach, and Nick’s was more of a field study on the local people. Even though we basically had the same vacation, our experiences are totally different. To me, it is the same if reading a book. Two of the same people read the same book, and they have two separate experiences on the book. Separate feelings, separate ideas crossed their minds while reading, so an experience can’t be duplicated.

I think the problem that I am having about this topic, is imaging two people having an exact experience. We really will never know what any other person is feeling at a particular moment or what they had felt during a particular time. They may tell or try us or write a book on it, and we may understand it but we will never know the exact experience that person had because there is no way to duplicate every emotion that a person felt during that time and emotion is a large part of experience. I could right a book about being in a tornado on my sister birthday, and having my dad almost die from our house collapsing, but none of you could ever have the experience that I had by reading a book. You can’t duplicate the feelings I had at that particular moment when I heard the front of my house collapse. I don’t think I could even express every emotion I felt into words. People can understand, and get an idea of the experience that an author is trying to depict, but it is almost like trying to create an experience without actually having it.

Fiction Comes From REALITY

Fiction has many important functions in our world. But most people don’t think of public arguments when they think of fiction. The word fiction brings to light our younger days of reading books about child detectives; it doesn’t make you think about important political or social issues. In essence fiction has to work much harder when it is trying to establish a credible stance on a public argument rather than when it is just telling a story. I don’t know how many books I have read in my lifetime, but I do know there are many I have completely forgotten because they do not make a point that is anchored in reality. On the other hand all the fictional books I can think of that I have really enjoyed and not forgotten have made significant statements about our society. I wont bother going into that list because I think they are probably books we have all read and remember. The point is for someone to remember a fictional book, for more than a few days, it has to use the objective correlative. In other words the points made in a fiction must be anchored in reality in order to have lasting power.

This leads me to believe that using fiction to argue is much harder than just stating your case and giving the evidence. With fiction you have to create an entire story just to make a point. And beyond that the story can be anything as long as it gets a point across. This is probably the main reason that only a small number of people attain significance as fiction writers; most of us can’t just sit down and create a world that shows people what we think and how we think they should feel about a particular issue.
There are many things to take into consideration when crafting a public argument through fiction. For example the setting, it could be in outer space, it could be far in the past, or it could be set in a bleak and desperate future. Along with the setting of time is the issue of where in a culture you set the story. If I were to write a story about the current economic slump and have it set in the culture of the CEO’s who maybe lost some money, but are nowhere near as bad off as the vast majority of the population, readers would wonder what the point was. They would think why do I care about these men who may have lost some money, but also may have had a large hand in bringing the country to its knees. On the other hand, telling a story about a family who were on the edge of poverty before the economic downturn and their subsequent struggles to survive after the downturn would resonate with a lot more readers. A book such as “The Grapes of Wrath” does just this. In essence it is the culture of the moment that shapes what fiction writers must use to craft a valid and relevant public argument.

Upon writing this I now have much more respect for any writer who can use fiction to establish a legitimate position on an argument. I am sure there are countless more things than I have mentioned that writers must take into account when creating fiction. But most of all I believe it is actual reality that determines what a writer must consider when writing fiction. Again back to the objective correlative.

Fictional Writing and Public Argument

Fictional literature, though fairly limited as far as public argument goes, does have its uses when it comes to the public forum. There are both benefits and limitations to this method of public argument, with limitations most often outweighing the benefits in my view.
An example of the use of fiction as a form of public argument would be any novel or piece of literary fictional writing that’s main goal is to use the development of its characters, plots, and settings to portray a particular or a set of particular themes and messages to its target audience. There are many examples of World War I and World War II based literature that target their respective events and seek to discuss different themes about the wars. There are also many novels written including such books as Invisible Man and The Color Purple that try and portray different arguments surrounding racially tense issues. The main benefit of this form of public discourse is that the authors of such books have a clean slate from which to work. None of the characters in the book have any form of ethos to reference prior to reading the piece, therefore the author can successfully craft his or her characters without being limited by any preconceived notions by the audience. In real life, nearly every public figure has some form of past history and ethos to look back on, therefore skewing future opinions of the receivers of any message that that figure puts forth. Fictional writing circumvents this problem. The other main benefit of this form of public argument is that it is possible to reach a large populous of people, therefore ensuring that the discourse can be reached by many individuals.

As far as its limitations go, there are a handful of fatal ones. The first one being, that in the real world, not many people take the time to sit down and read. Given the lifestyle of many Americans and people across the world in general, there is not much time left in a person’s day to sit down and read a given literary piece, even if that person has the desire to. In an ideal world, people would take the time to read a wide variety of fictional literature, but unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. So, even though this form of argument has the potential to reach a large number of people, this potential is often irrelevant because simply put, not enough individuals take part in the literary world. Various other forms of entertainment such as computers and television take up the vast majority of people’s free time, leaving no desire to take part in the reading of literature. Finally, when you have people who do actually read, not enough of these individuals are astute enough to get the full benefit of the author’s literary work. Authors of these types of fictional writings often give meaning and purpose to every minute detail of language, but often times these well intended implementations are missed and passed over, ultimately defeating the purpose of the writing in the first place. All in all, if people were more interested in literary discourse and were better evaluators of language, this form of public argument would be more useful, but until that day fictional writing in the public forum will always be considered unfulfilled potential.

Does persuasion still work?

When does persuasion matter?

I think it depends on two situation: One situation when one ask for a great change from his or her audience, persuasion might not be effective anymore in today's world; while a message that encourages a minor change from the audience, for example, an advertisement, art of persuasion might just work or I should say that as the art of advertisement.

For the first situation, when politicians ask the audience to agree with their idea of movement, people are normally reluctant to change. They may not feel confident of their capability or they fear to unable to match up the expectation or they are in their comfort zone that they are not looking for changes. These are personal perception and individual preference because they are asked to make change that is often portrayed by the politician as a change that will affect others at the same time. Thus persuasion in this sense is depending on the acceptance of the audience.

On the other hand, a small change affecting the audience own lifestyle, such as persuasion in advertisement will have an impact on the audience because they have the ability to directly control the outcome. Advertisement is often time an exaggerated way to sell a product. In my opinion, people are just born with curiosity and that is why advertisement can easily catch their attention. I just think that, persuasion is not an effective way in politics anymore as people are afraid to stand up anymore. The time when people are determined to fight for what they believe is disappearing because people now are too comfortable with their life.

Furthermore, I also think that persuasion is dying along with the fast spread of information. Today, people can easily gather information that either agrees or disagree with their thought from the Internet nowadays. There are all kinds of opinions around the world, people share them on the web and seek for agreement. With the diversified culture and environment across the world, it is possible to find someone to agree with what you can think out of. Thus, they have the option to listen to any public persuasion and refuse to accept them. This has somehow further enhanced individual's stand and rejected a new view on an issue which diminishes the effect of persuasion.

Looking into a country far away from the United States, Malaysia, the freedom of speech is not practice so widely and with the limited transparency of the government to its people. I have to say persuasion in the public is normally just not as effective. People are so reluctant to listen to a political party because they just hardly believe what they saw are the whole of an issue. People there tend to just accept what they have and mind their own business especially Chinese Malaysians that have fought their way to stand out in the Malay community. It is disappointed thinking of the way people communicates back home. People just do not share or commute their opinions enough to reach an understanding. Fortunately, I am glad that the government is moving into a semi-democratic and recently there are many exchanges in opinions on the transparency of the government. For people that grew up in this environment, such as me, it is a huge step moving into a society that can have political protest on the street where it used to be against the law once upon a time.

In the end, persuasion requires many elements to be able to successfully call for an action. However, with the accessibility to any kind of information through the Internet now and with the emphasis on individualism in this country, persuasion is dying as time past because the audience has increasingly insisted on his or her own thought.

Persuasion is Not Dead, Just Impossible.

The question of whether or not people can be persuaded is a very interesting. I am still hung on two different answers. One, that people can no longer be persuaded because of the political strength in society today. And two, people can be persuaded but just choose not to listen, because they are too stubborn and afraid that they might agree with the opposing person.

I do not think it’s the sense of being wrong is what bothers people but more the idea of what they would be if they were persuaded in any issue. What I mean by this is, politics play a huge role in life today. There is simply no way to get around the topic of politics in most conversations and every where you seem to go politics are popping up somewhere. To get to the point, people in today’s society, from my experience, only want to stick to the issues that are important to their political party. You can’t agree with some issues from one political party and some from another, you have to be either democrat or republican. This is why I believe that people almost refuse to be persuaded. It is not even the action of being persuaded or the issue that is being brought to questions. It is whether your political identity will change if you are persuaded even on one single issue.

I once had a guy asked me if recycling was a ‘liberal thing’. I laughed at the question but then answered no, recycling is something anyone can do, but it is a tad bit liberal I guess. He quickly responded “no then I don’t recycle because I am a republican.” This example did not involve persuasion but it proves that people will sway one way or another depending on their political standings.

This is what leads me to think that persuasion is not entirely dead but just covered by people’s inability to be open to a new side of an issue. I may not be correct, but with my experience I think that this is true. And if it’s not for political reasons, then it is merely because people are too stubborn to hear what the other side has to say, regardless of the issue. This happens to me almost on a daily basis. I am a vegetarian and when people ask me why I respond by saying animal rights and health. People are quick to judge but they never want to hear my side. Is it because they think they know everything there is to know about vegetarianism? Or is it because they are afraid that they may be interested at the idea of being vegetarian? Vegetarianism is something different and listening to a vegetarians view on it could change their outlook on many things.

If people became more open to the idea of change and openness, maybe persuasion would come alive. But in this day in age it seems very unlikely. Heated debates on abortion, stem- cell research, foreign policy always come up somewhere in conversation, whether it is in class or just at the table with a bunch of friends. People have very strong opinions on topics like these, and don’t like to listen to other peoples opinions. If you have ever been in one of these debates then you know that instead of listening to the other person’s argument, you are most likely thinking about what you are going to say next to defend your opinion.

I guess in the long run, persuasion is not dead, just covered up by peoples inability to believe that their might be more out there than what just they believe is true. If people would relax and hear what there is to hear about any argument, I think that persuasion would come alive again. So, persuasion is not entirely dead, merely just in a coma.

The Effectiveness of a Recycling Ad

The ad that I am analyzing on this post is an ad for recycling. The first thing to catch my eyes when I look at the ad is the words in large, bold font that say “Protect his habitat. And yours.” Separating the two sentences makes the phrase more effective. To me, the period in between the two, makes a bolder statement then if it were to read ‘Protect his habitat, and yours.’ It’s kind of making the phrase two different thoughts. ‘I can be an environmentalist and protect wildlife by recycling my batteries. That’s a good thing.’ ‘Oh and I can protect my own home. That’s an even better thing.’ The same phrase by having ‘And yours.’ Added to the end, hits the soft side of humans. People are always looking for ways to protect their homes from anything and everything. This makes people more consciously aware that old batteries can be toxic to their families. If the ad just said ‘Protect his habitat’, the ad would be less effective because the demographic area that it would target would be smaller.

The writers of this ad repeat the phrase once again at the beginning of the paragraph. “When you recycle your rechargeable batteries, you preserve his environment – and ours.” Once again, the sentence is split up into two different thought processes. “You can preserve his environment,” and the second “and ours.” This time though, its saying “and ours” instead of “and yours.” So the ad adds a second thought. A person reading this can now save the environment, their individual home as well as the world as a whole. The phrases aim towards environmentalists and also to adults who are more focused on keep their homes safe.

The picture also makes the demographic of the ad more towards men. The power tool is convincing to a man because it would make them think that keeping his home and family protected is up to him. Just like he would fix something that is broken to protect his home from further damage, he should do the same to keep his family safe from old batteries. I also think that the use of HIS in the initial phrase may keep this ad leaning more towards men. It could make the man reading the article feel important because he is the keeper of his home just like the bird is the keeper of his nest. It may not be the most effective piece of the ad, but I defiantly think it has a small part in convincing the reader to recycle.

The other thing that I noticed is that the paragraph at the bottom of the ad is not just explaining the ad but it is proposing an argument. The conclusion would be “When you recycle your rechargeable batteries, you preserve his environment- and ours.” The other sentences following are small claims to back the conclusion. It’s saying if you don’t check the batteries in your cordless power tools, cordless phones, camcorders etc., then his home and yours will be in danger. The paragraph is effective because it doesn’t flat out say ‘if you don’t recycle your batteries your home is in danger’ but it does it in a more effective, almost sly way where the reader will go ‘hey maybe I should this.’

I think the components of this ad make it very effective. It is telling the readers that old batteries are toxic, and recycling can help the environment and yours. It appeals to the reader to recycle but without being to pushy on the environmental part. It appeals to men, or adults, homeowners, as well as environmentalists so the ad is not aiming towards one demographic. Putting all the components together, make the ad very effective.

A Thought on Ethos

When I first considered this question, I was sure what side I would come down on. It was a forgone conclusion that I would make the argument that a speaker’s reputation is far and away more important in every situation, absolutely dwarfing the weight that a particular rhetorical moment plays. The more and more I thought about it, the more and more I concluded that the question proposed isn’t exactly fair. In fact, no person can make the claim that one is more important than the other on a broad level, because every situation that a speaker/author has to express themselves must be analyzed on an individual level. For example: The United States has just come under a major terrorist attack carried out by an unknown rebel group. The country is in a panic. Someone must bring this situation under control and restore calm in the minds of her country. So who else pops on the television other than well known Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. After several minutes of listening to his well thought out, emotionally compelling piece, Americans have a chance to process what has just happened. Will they respect and support his unusually supportive ideas on how the situation should be handled? Well, the obvious answer is absolutely not. Not only is Bin Laden well known for his terrorist attacks on sovereign nations in other countries, but also for helping coordinate the devastating terrorist acts in New York on Sept. 11 2001. Therefore, following the suggestions of this murderer on how to handle a post terrorist attack operation would most obviously be foolish, because even the most naive of us could conclude that because of his reputation as a hateful, anti-American terrorist, he most definitely doesn’t have the United States’ best interests in mind. On the opposite side, one can not only rely on reputation as indicator of one’s ethos in a given situation. If a well known, well liked politician were to advocate to re-instate slavery, it wouldn’t matter how respected and well thought of this individual was, nearly every person that knew of this would write off anything he had said and his ethos would therefore be affected in a highly negative way. The point we see from looking at both of these cases is that the possibilities for a particular situation where ethos can be judged are endless. There are speakers/authors who have terrible reputations with the public but give rousing speeches, those who have an impeccable public identity and deliver bombs, and others who lie in between. When it comes down to it, arguing in a dogmatic way may seem appealing, but in reality, ethos must be judged differently in every individual case, taking into account each person’s own reputation along with the content of his or her rhetorical piece.

Reputation Cannot be Avoided

It is possible, in Aristotle’s time, that his contention, that ethos should be derived from what the speaker says and not his past reputation was a fair argument. In this media saturated age this statement is much more controversial. In most cases we, the public, are very aware of people’s past actions and we take those actions into account whenever we see a well-known person speak, or take action. As college students we are taught to be aware and critical of the world around us. Aristotle’s argument almost goes against this notion of the student as a critical thinker. When we hear Barrack Obama make a speech, we do not turn off the knowledge we have gained from the constant coverage of him for the past two years. For me, and for other students, I am sure this is impossible. On the other hand, as critical thinkers we must also use our minds in the moment to decide what we think of any speech or rhetorical action. In this sense our education gives us a double-edged sword, while Aristotle’s argument can be seen as a single sharp blade.
Another point to consider is the vast amount of people who can make public arguments, after all that is what we are doing in this class. In this case and in any case where you are reading someone’s blog who you are unfamiliar with, your sense of ethos will no doubt come from what the writer has said and argued for. In fact, there are numerous rhetorical actions that require us to make judgments of character based on inanimate objects and one-line phrases. Someday when you’re walking between class take a look around you at all the bumper stickers on cars and buttons and patches on people’s backpacks. We see things such as “support our troops” and “impeach bush”, in this case we can make reasonable judgments about an individual’s political affiliations and thus what we think of their ethos. All this from the back of a car, without ever hearing the individual speak a single word.
Then there are the cases where the public knows more than they ever should, or want to about someone, thanks to the Paparazzi and the constant coverage of all celebrities. Whenever we hear celebrities speak, there are events from their past that immediately come to mind. O.J. Simpson running away in a white Bronco, Michael Jackson dangling his baby off a balcony and of course Brittany Spears, well there aren’t really any specifics besides that she is a mess. Imagine if Brittany Spears got up and read one of Barack Obama’s speeches as if it were her own. There is no way anyone in their right mind could take her seriously and believe what she was saying. The obvious and indisputable reason for this is her reputation, her unavoidable and disastrous reputation. The example doesn’t have to be this extreme for us to discount most of what celebrities say. The lesson here is that it is possible to damage your reputation so much, that anything that comes out of your mouth will be completely disregarded.
In conclusion, I don’t believe that in this modern age we can discount reputation. There are times, when reputation isn’t there and in this case we have no choice but to base our judgment of ethos on what an individual says. In contrast, any well-known speaker’s reputation is very apparent and cannot be discarded. We all saw Barack Obama on TV and in the news for two years plus, finally concluding with a half-hour infomercial. Is it really possible for us to forget everything we have seen and heard when hearing him give a speech now? No it isn’t.