Blog Post 2/24/11

Who would have ever thought we’d be writing a blog post about whatever we want? Writing about whatever you want is fun! There doesn’t have to be any structure to whatever you write. Gone are the worries of describing mundane events from your life in an overly dramatic, needlessly compelling, ridiculously wordy, stupidly over sized paper. Think about that for a minute. I mean, every time you sit down at your desk, office, class room, or wherever else it is you find yourself when tasked with writing a paper like this, take note of one thing.“What is this thing?” you ask? It’s the fact that anytime you’re writing one of these papers all that being asked of you is to take a topic, whatever it may be, find out what they facts are, then exaggerate the hell out of them with savvy, emotional stimulating word play. That’s it. In my opinion, there really is nothing more to it than that.

I suppose one could argue that my viewpoint is, in some way, very flawed. Who knows, they may even present it to me in one of those over exaggerated, emotionally stimulating, pointlessly long, essays of misery, I love so much! All kidding aside though, consider this before you completely discount my seemingly anger driven viewpoint of this subject.

When you write something like this, do you really consider your audience? Now you might say, “of course I do, that’s the silliest question I’ve ever heard!” Read on though and you may find that the above question isn’t so silly after all.

For instance, if your writing a biography for a Skate Boarding magazine, do you really think the audience of that magazine is intended for is really going to sit there and read your wordy description of the events in someone’s life. The answer is no; they’ll pick it up for ten minutes of so if you’re lucky, read the articles that interest them and be on their way. The rest of their time will probably be used skateboarding. In cases such as this, there is no need for such clever, polished, emotionally charged, language. In this case it would be more useful to state just the essential facts, and attract the reader in some other way. For example, you could use pictures to attract their eye to your article.

The bottom line here is: Before you write a paper, decide how much an emotional stimulus is really needed for your intended audience, otherwise you run the risk of over doing it. Nobody wants to read your piece of writing if it’s pointlessly overcharged with emotion. Believe me, it creates boredom.

Writting Qucik Start 303 - 2/17/11

As you can see by the illustration you should have received some materials for building your book shelf. The box should contain a total of four pieces of wood. Two pieces of the wood should be labeled “A” and the other three should be labeled “B2.” You also should have received a total of four screws. In order to assemble your bookshelf, simply place the two pieces of wood labeled “A” in a parallel fashion on the floor as shown in picture 1; place the three boards labeled “B2” in between them. Be sure to align the three boards with the holes for the screws on the boards labeled “A” as illustrated in the second picture. Next proceed to place the screws into the holes and tighten them. Perform this task on one side first, then, do the same on the other side. After you have tightened the screws on both sides of the shelf, the shelf should represent a box, as depicted in the third picture.

As a side note, feel free to stain the wood for added visual appeal.

Blog Post Writing Quick Start Page 409 – 2/10/10

The predominant behavior depicted in the photograph is that of Human Compassion. Human Compassion, in this context, is when someone has sympathy for the circumstances of someone else’s situation. The picture represents the epitome of the above mentioned word. The Salvation Army Workers are passing out much needed food to the inhabitants of whatever area has been victimized by this clearly significant disaster. I am a strong believer that there has to be at least some level of compassion in a person’s heart in order for them to be a part of such an organization; unless I’m mistaken, the workers of the Salvation Army are not paid to do what they do, so something tells me they aren’t doing this job for their own financial gain.

The above mentioned fact leads me to believe that in addition to compassion, which is primarily a sympathetic emotion, the workers are also portraying empathetic behavior toward the victims. After all, if they didn’t care about helping the victims of this disaster, they wouldn’t be there. Now, these people may have different reasons for helping the victims. Some of them may have been in a similar situation themselves; other people may just have big hears. We will never know the source of their motivations however, so obviously it doesn’t do anyone any good to speculate about the subject.

The bottom line is as follows. In my opinion, in order for the workers in the picture to be doing what they are doing, it is essential for them to possess varying levels of the above mentioned feelings toward their fellow human being. I suppose peer pressure could also be a contributing factor to the behavior depicted. If someone’s friends are doing something, that person has a tendency to follow the lead of their friends so to speak.

4 Questions about my Narrative Essay - 2/2/11

Q: What one specific aspect of your paper are you proudest of and why?
A: I am most proud of the story i told about myself in the beginning of the essay. I feel this story was an essential part of the narrative the set the stage for the rest of the essay.

Q: What was the most difficult aspect of writing this essay and why?
A: The most difficult part of writing this paper was that it was really difficult for me to transfer the thoughts from my head onto the paper. A lot of the time, it's difficult to just write things sown on a sheet of paper in the same way they sound in your head. As a consequence, i found myself having to reword certain things in different ways so that they would make sense in the essay.

Q: Imagine you had extra time to revise this essay, what would you want to polish and why?
A: If i had the extra time to revise and polish the aspects of this paper, i would probably use the time to infuse more imagery and descriptive language into this essay.

Q: How would you approach such a revision?
A: I would approach this revision by looking at the situations i described in the story and thinking about how i could use more sensory language to further immerse the reader's mind into the content of my essay.