Quickwrite 12/8

My reaction to this piece was very indifferent. I found it interesting that it took Amy Tan so long to catch on to her mothers and her own "broken english". I could see how it would be difficult to learn a language in its entirety. When i was in high school i took french for 4 years. At the end of my class i could see how if i were in france what i thought to be clear french would be incomprehensible to the people that live there. After reading the piece i found it disturbing that people would give her mother bad service because of her English. i know that it cannot be easy to know two languages that are nothing structurally alike and to discriminate against someone that is trying to use the language correctly strikes me as wrong. Overall, i thought this piece was interesting.

Quickwrite 12/6

My reaction to this piece was that Margaret had a really strong opinion on what is happening to America and it was well argued. I think that by listing the things that America used to mean to her, like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, it expressed how the innocence of the country has in a way diminished. She brushes over the topic of Americas involvement in Iraq and i think thats part of her problem with America. She then states, "lets talk, then, not about what you're doing to other people, but about what your doing to yourselves". I thought this quote was really effective because even though she is focusing on our involvement in other countries and how that makes us look bad, it also ruins things back home. The debt we have and the american economy is a result of these decisions. I also found it effective that at the end she says there is still hope and relates to an old British myth. What could have been seen has ineffective in this argument was how in the 4th paragraph on the second page she talked as if America was a person, which kind of lost me in respect to her argument.

Quickwrite 11/29

My topic for the final paper is going to be arguing that jornalism is not just going to be on the internet in the future
1.Ad Hominem- When arguing my point, I will not attack the people who have differing ideas but instead argue against their points
2.Stereotyping-I will not include stereotypes because that would weaken my argument
3.Faulty Sampling- I'll make sure that i don't use statistics that are geared towards my topic and therefore misrepresent information
4.Sweeping Generalizations- I will make sure not to generalize my statements, because not everyone has the same opinions
5.False Dilema- I will make sure that i don't just view this issue as two-sided and will make sure to discuss different outcomes
6.Post Hoc- I will make sure that i don't assume things are happening to the journalism field every time that there are technology advancements

Homework

What was the importance behind Converse buying that warehouse in Brooklyn? -Beers
Converse was celebrating their grand opening in SoHo, to celebrate this they had a lot of free things for the guest and musical attraction Matt and Kim. According to the text bands and brands actually need each other, so by having a warehouse party it allows both the band and Converse to support its product. It was a way of embracing their look and how they want their company to appear to others.

Quickwrite 11/17

1. Do you think that applying music-industry techniques to brands is an affective way to gain an audience?
2. What other companies can you think of other than Levi's or Mountain Dew that use celebrities for promotion?
3. The text states, "the people who are waitng for a booking agent and a manager and a record label- its not going to really work out like that". Do you think that unique ways, like how Matt and Kim got in the industry, is how people that want to be famous should approach it?

Food

I'll bring pretzels

Answers

-How can social issues, such as race and religion affect how someone views a certain genre of music? -Russ

I think that issues such as race and religion can effect peoples opinions when listening to music in many different ways. For instance, when moms listen to songs by lil wayne or other rappers they are generally offended by the vulgar language and disrespect towards women. To others it isn't really a factor when they chose to listen to rap. Differences in opinions like these are reasons why there are so many different genres of music, or so i believe.

-Why didn't Disco achieve the same mainstream success that Rock N Roll did? -Riley

According to the article, disco was heard about in underground ways. Either a disk jockey would put his music out, the dance clubs would play the music, or magazines would talk about it. Compared to Rock N Roll who already had a stable fan basis, I'm sure it was more difficult for people to get their disco music heard about. Also, because of the controversy between races on the topic, disco was not played on the radio therefore stopping exposure to a larger audience.

Quickwrite 11/10

1. What are some contributing factors that you think made disco be looked down upon?
2. Do you think that if there were more technological advancements back when disco was big it would still be around today instead of similar types of music like dub-step and techno?
3. Disco became big because of "urban discotheques, disk jockeys and fan magazines" and not because of the typical radio stations. Do you think that music that gains fame this way will still be listened to years from now, or dead like disco?

Quickwrite 11/3

I agree with the author about his stance on technology. It is a field "forcing us to watch it engorge itself with power, growing ever strong and more prominent." But with the good things about technology come the bad. The author stated his experience when his computer crashed, and i think that most people can relate to times like this. I know when i used to have a windows desktop computer the screen would always turn blue and because i am not knowledgeable with that technology i had no clue as to where to start to fix it. I agree with the authors point that computers have made us more productive, but at the cost of making us more vulnerable. This is relevant to our fourth paper because we are going to be incorporating a lot of different aspects of technology. If you are not a "knower" this project would pose a few difficulties. We are going to be using videos and that seems like it could be a complicated process.

Quickwrite 11/1

One thing i took from this chapter was how to finalize my paper before i turn it in. It stressed the importance of peer review and because of this i will try and get as many eyes on my paper as possible. I thought that the activity he used where you cut up your paper and arrange the paragraphs would be actually really helpful with my paper. Sometimes when I'm writing i feel like the paragraphs don't flow together and this activity would put the strongest paragraphs at the beginning so I start out strong. Being done with this book is a big accomplishment, once my paper is completely done i will see if Ballenger's tips actually helped me grow as a writer.

Quickwrite 10/18

What i found most helpful from this chapter was Ballenger's description of how to interpret 3 different kinds of sources into my paper by quoting, paraphrasing and summarizing. I know that in my experience of writing papers i have found a sentence online and thought to myself 'hey thats a really interesting point.' I have tried to put it into my own word using a thesaurus and different wording, not realizing thats just plagiarism. If i had known back in those days that it was called paraphrasing and its actually a correct technique I'm sure my paper would have improved significantly. I know that in this paper i will have many ideas from other people that i will have to incorporate into my paper. He gave examples of using attribution tags which will come in handy because i find those to be often repetitive.

Quickwrite 10/11

One thing that i took from this chapter is how to find reliable sources. It went into depth about how to find quality and varied sources on the web. The chart on page 65 was really helpful as to how to determine when to use a source or not. Typically if there is no author and the website looks questionable i would not use the site, this chart showed me when else it would appropriate to not use a source. This will help me on my Disciplinary Literacies paper because research is really going to be the foundation of the paper. Having reliable sources would make the best paper possible and allow me to be successful in my findings.

Steve Jobs

My reaction to this video is that Steve Jobs was truly an intelligent man that contributed a lot to our society. As most of us here are sitting on our MacBooks or texting on our iPhones he really changed the technology available to us today. I thought his speech was very thought out and intellectual. All of the points he made could be applied to everyones life and are very wise words. I like how he ended it with stay hungry stay foolish because who would have known that a college drop-out created the thing that i am typing this blog post on.

Racial Incidents Response

After reading the email i felt very disappointed with people that make decisions to deface school property for the sole reason of hurting other students. I find it very immature and inconsiderate that people would do this. You would think that going to college you would find mature, educated people but this incident reflects the opposite. Im glad that the school did not take this incident lightly and informed everyone that this is not an okay thing to do. Diversity is a great thing to have in a University and i don't understand why people would be so upset as to graffiti dorms in response to the intimidation of different cultures.

Quickwrite 10/4

Character

3. One point where the author stresses his need for human interaction is when he dramatized calling 911 and having it be a machine on the other end. This claim to me really expressed his need for a personal experience. If every time you called a number and expected service that was catered to you, you would be discouraged listening to lists of numbers type in your phone to assess the problem. WIth a system like this you are lumped as a population and do not have anyone to answer your specific needs. This is frustrating to the caller. As technologies continue to advance, machine related problems like these I'm sure will commonly spring up.

Quickwrite 9/29

I didn't really find anything in this book that i thought was problematic. I thought that the author genuinely knew what he was talking about, and if one decided to follow his advice they would have a really impressive paper. I found the way that he used stories from both his life and what is happening in the world was very intelligent and effective. I think this guy just got really curious and accurately learned how to write.

Quickwrite 9/22

Karen's viewpoints are reflected in her CV when she states her course of work. Judging by her CV she is very well rounded in the subject of science. She taught seminars in the courses of ethics, bioethics, the philosophy of science and so on. Her philosophies show she is qualified enough in her field to be making statements about contemporary bioethics relating to virtue ethics. Her report appears very complex to someone that does not know the field, reflecting her intelligence as presented by her CV.

Quickwrite 9/20

1. The difference between argument and persuasion is that persuasion is more of a sly way of arguing. Persuading someone to believe something is a strategy. One can use facts to change the readers mind and opinion to shape their thought.

2. A CV or resume is an argument because its arguing about arguments

Quickwrite 9/8

This piece made me realize how women of different cultures get treated differently. The women would get shunned for something they can not physically control. I find that surprising and a little bit disturbing. Throughout the story she describes multiple times how women in her life helped shape the person she was. I find the role of women in this society very interesting.

Quickwrite 9/6

I thought this piece was interesting because it represented a minority group in a different way. Before reading this piece i would never have thought to think of AAL as its own language. One thing that surprised me in this piece was that the African Americans would get offended when Latinos would speak their lingo. I think that if the Latinos grew up in the same surroundings as them it makes it part of their culture too. I think this piece was chosen so that we could relate to different societies and have a better understanding of different views of people our same age.