What is a Blog? Part Two

I feel that this semester my idea of what a blog is has changed into a broad view of the uses. Before, I thought blogs were taken over by immature people as a way to vent their rage and to talk about every little thing in their lives. After three months of working with blogs, I realize that blogs are more of a way to have a private forum, you can state something and have someone reply to you in an open environment. Still, many people do use blogs to vent their rage and gossip about anything and everything, which is something that I get annoyed at hearing about all the time. I still feel that blogs need to be censored, as anyone, for the most part, can view a blog and then if someone stated that they wanted this person dead, someone may take that as an offer. I also still feel that blogs are currently a fad, but as with cell phones, some people will become addicted to them and be unable to exist without their blogs should they ever go away.

This semester has been a fun and educational experience, for the most part. I really did not like the blogging aspect of the class, as it is harder for me to concentrate and type something out at the computer, unless it is a paper or something that I am interested in. To have to read something and then figure out a way to explain what you read, I find, is more difficult for some than for others. I, myself, have trouble with this at times, especially if I did not understand the reading that well. This class has also helped me expand my writing skills out to different genre than I am used to. I generally write fiction and argument papers, so having to shift into a paper that I have no stance or opinion of my own into was rather difficult.

One thing I did find rather annoying was the Writer’s Resource we had to buy at the beginning of the semester. The citation section didn’t have some of the MLA citation formats I needed, and some I used were marked as incorrect, even though I modeled after the books examples, such as with T.V. interviews. It also lacked several citation formats such as those for government documents and laws. I didn’t enjoy the scavenger hunt assignment that much because the Cline Library’s website was very difficult to navigate through.

I really did like the fact that for both of the argument papers, WE chose the topics rather than being assigned them. This made it much easier to write the paper since we actually had a stance on the topic, and, in my case, can be very passionate about it. The problem I ran into with both papers is that some of the necessary information I need come from indirect sources, I have seen them cited dozens of times but have not been able to actually find the information, and internet websites. I do look forward to the group presentation. Even though there will only be two people in my group, we are both very knowledgeable with the topic, and thus understand both sides even though we are on the same one.

Overall this was a very enjoyable semester and I have learned some skills that I will be able to use in the future.

Discrimination is a Virtue

While I tune out when ever the Democratic nominees show up on the TV with their speeches due to being tired of their attacking each other and then acting as friends, I feel that discrimination has been something that has shown up over and over between the two. Clinton knocked Obama for missing the State of the Black Union because he is black. Both have tried to play the discrimination card by trying to appeal to “their groups” and have ended up skipping over other groups that they don’t “relate to”.

Visual

This cartoon was found on the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus Facebook website. It shows the mentality that many anti-gun activists have when it comes to gun-free zones and criminals. While this is a sarcastic cartoon, it shows the fallacy of gun-free zones against criminals.

Prospectus

Negative: Will be hard to keep audience interested.

Question: How will the information be collected?

Question: how will the audience keep interest in the paper?

Black Language

I was confused at times during the reading as to what the author was trying to say. I understood the point about language versus the dialect. The language is unique for the area, but overall is a dialect of the same language for others in a different area. I felt that the author started to preach against the “rich whites” for only educating blacks when it was of benefit to them, and then only to teach that “the child can never be white”. I felt that this last bit was unnecessary and injured the author’s words. The author makes references on how words and phrases have been changed to be less crude with their meaning for whites versus blacks, such as “jazz” and “sock it to me”. For blacks they mean one thing but for whites they mean another. I do think though that some of the things stated have changed since the 1970’s and that the situation is a little better in some areas. Sure some regions things haven’t changed due to prejudice and poverty, but overall in the country things have changed since that time period.

Annotation

Arizona Department of Public Safety-Licensing Unit. 7 February 2008. Arizona Department of Public Safety. 25 March 2008. <http://www.azdps.gov/ccw/procedures/obtainpermit.asp>.
This website contains information regarding the requirements and procedures for obtaining a concealed weapons permit in the state of Arizona. There are several specific details on who can have a license, and who cannot.
This was written by the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s Concealed Weapons Permit Unit.
The purpose is to provide information those wishing to know how to obtain a concealed weapons permit.
While this page has a lot of good information for me, I do need to go and pick up a paper copy so that I do not lose a web source.

The right to fail?

The Right to Fail….yeah right. It doesn’t matter what right we have when we are pretty much forced into succeeding as defined by society. Success is defined, today, completing college with a four year degree, anything less and you are a failure and won’t amount to anything in your life. Or at least that’s what I was told. What is the problem with someone getting a lower degree and pursuing a higher one later? What if someone wants to actually LEARN what they are going to be dealing with in their career? I find that it is sad, how you basically have to buy our right to succeed in this world, and anything less is failing. I have had goals in my life that I have failed to achieve, but not through any fault of my own. It is hard to get over your desires when they can not be obtained no matter what you do in your lifetime.

CIA CRAAP

C: This page was updated on March 6, 2008.
R: This page was designed to give in-depth information about Iran
A: The page is on the Central Intellegence Agency's website, no specific author is given
A: Censuses, no sources listed
P: The point of view appears impartial and informational.

If the page had listed sources, I would have been more keen on trusting the completeness of the information.

Fallacies

Utah students hide guns, head to class
"I feel less safe knowing that a stranger sitting beside me in class may have a gun in his or her backpack," she said.
"The only people that should carry guns are trained officials."
"We are worried that it may affect their [students' and teachers'] willingness or desire to go to or teach a class on campus," she said.
"But you see, that is where the problem lies: Everybody will end up carrying concealed weapons, and everyday problems will be solved with guns rather than words or even fists."
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/20/cnnu.guns/index.html?iref=newssearch

Fallacies:

1) Appeal to Emotion

2) Haste Generalization

3) “Slippery Slope” Fallacy

Middle Schoolers get the Pill

The two points of view for this article were for allowing the kids to have the contraceptives, the other was against it. The view that is for allowing the kids, eleven to thirteen, to have birth-control argues that these kids are having sex regardless of the consequences, and that they will continue to do so. The view that is against it states that the kids are too young to be having sex in the first place. One of the counter arguments used in this article was dealing with teens and smoking. M.D. Harmon refuted the idea of “handing out low-tar cigarettes” to seventh graders by saying “we tell kids not to smoke and make it illegal to sell them tobacco.” I feel that the point of view of the kids was over looked. Some of the kids may be able to give better insight than a third party when it comes to the social life in schools.

Reflection

In my rhetorical analysis, I had a very basic rough draft. It was only a page and a half. In my first attempt I put too much of my own feelings and ideas into the paper. After the meeting with the professor, I understood more of what the paper was supposed to be. Rather than an opinion or editorial, it was more like a book report, though not in the same style and meaning. The information was on the subject, not improving or countering the ideas of the author. In my final paper, I was able to get the three pages needed. I was able to expand my paper by using more of the author’s words, though, some of my citations were not correct. In some spots I had multiple citations for a single page, and was unsure how to cite them, so I put the page number after each time, rather than, I assume, at the end of the paper. There were other places in the paper where I put the citation in the paragraph. I thought you were supposed to put them at the end of the sentence, but I must have been mistaken. Something else that I need to work on heavily is my transitions. I never have had much skill at doing them, often times I’ll repeat the same one throughout the paper. This is just something that takes time and practice to get well at. There were a few spots were I didn’t have the quotes right in the paper, though with one spot, he has said not to put the punctuation inside the quotes unless that is how it was. So I put the period after the quotations because it wasn’t included in the quote and I was marked off for it. There were a few typos in the paper, and some use of words that weren’t needed, or were incorrectly used. After speaking to Nick, it made a lot more sense to me how to write this paper, same with the next one. I mostly need to be more confident with my own writing skill, and try to turn out the best rough draft I can in order to have an easier time doing the final copy. I usually am better at churning out a good final copy without the use of a good rough draft, since in High School I was trained to use the outline more than the rough draft. Overall, I think this rough draft, and the commentary that went with it, helped me very much understand how to get the final paper into the best condition I could, at the time. I think if I had put a little more effort into reading over what I was putting into it, and what editing and citations I needed to do, I could have polished the paper into a much better one that I had turned in. I hope to use this improved knowledge with Synthesis paper that is due on Friday, and get a better score on it than I received on the rhetorical analysis.

Synthesis

Both of these papers were very well written. It’s amazing to see how the truths people cling to are hardly actually discovered for themselves. Both Plato and Freire discuss how it is people know what they know, and how people become educated. Freire uses analogies, while Plato uses an example of how people first learn.

Freire compared a teacher and the students to containers. The teacher’s task was to fill the students with his lectures, while the students retain all that they can, without really understanding the reasons behind the words. He believes that humans best learn by figuring out on their own, reading deeper into things.

Plato’s example was people living in a cave discovering things about them and trying to figure out what those things are. One example was an echo with shadows. How would the people know that the echo is just sound waves being bounced back off the walls of the cave? By agreeing as a group on what the shadows and sounds were, they understood more of what was around them.

My Argument paper topic

My arguement paper is going to be on Gun-Free Zones and Concealed Weapons on Campus. My view is that Gun-Free Zones are useless against criminals who already break the law. Same with not allowing concealed weapon license holders to carry on campuses when they can carry almost anywhere else.

If anyone is interested in talking to me with an alternate point of view, or the same one, please let me know so I can add the opposing side into my paper(s)

What is a Blog?

I think a blog started as a way for people who have limited social lives to be able to tell someone, anyone, about the events in their lives. However, I think blogs have out grown their innocent beginnings and have been over run by many immature people who will post just about anything, no matter how insensitive or vulgar. I believe that internet bullies have begun to take advantage of the ability to post on a blog without it being known it was them. I personally do not like using a blog, partly because I do not have a very active life, and also because I like to keep parts of my life private unless I am sure of who I want to tell it to. I think a blog should be a away to get things off your chest, ask advice, or anything else you want in a safe environment. I rarely read blogs myself, though I do read one or two once in a while. Blogs are currently a major fad, though they will probably remain popular a long time into the future.

test post

This is a test of the blog I just created on Blogger.com