Gym Dilemma

I carried my day on as I normally would by going to my classes and finishing off the afternoon by going to the gym. I was fairly upset only to see that the track has been closed due to constructive maintenance. This meant that I would have to run on the treadmill by the weight room. For some reason, I find there to be a significant difference between running on the treadmill and running on a track. I realized I did not have much of a choice if I wanted to run for that day since it was very cold outside. I decided to run on the treadmill and ran a mile longer than I normally would. In addition to my increased time, I also felt more pain in my knees and had a painful experience on the treadmill. After thirty minutes of suffering on the treadmill, I headed back upstairs to the track to get on the bike. To my surprise and anger, the track maintenance had finished construction only several minutes after I had left downstairs. I feel as though an announcement should have been made so I would have not made my knees go through unnecessary pain. 

Essay R Feedback

To offer Essay R feedback to improve his essay, I would begin by telling the author that his thoughts and ideas seemed to be relevant but they needed more organization. He should have also made his thesis clear in the essay rather than state it as his title. It appeared as though his thesis was geared towards the idea that wrestling has changed since the 80’s compared to present day. With this thesis in mind, the author should have mentioned more significant differences between the two time periods. Instead, he blended wrestling from the 80’s and the 90’s together, which seemingly were not the same.

            I would also suggest to the author that he needs a clear view of his audience. His audience could have not been to a group of wrestling fans because they would obviously recognize the changes wrestling has gone through over time. He should be more aware to explain some of his thoughts or even the names of some of the wrestlers he mentioned. Essay R should also contained more evidence to support his thesis. One web source that was mentioned only in the second paragraph was not a primary source to allow the audience to support or believe his proclamations. With more structural organization, formality, grammatical and spelling corrections, Essay R could be much improved. 

Workshop Draft Questions

.    What does a workshop draft as a genre look like?

A workshop draft as a genre is close to a rough draft of an essay. However, I believe that it is even more informal than a rough draft and leans more towards an outline. In terms of essay form, it is not fairly structured and the way it is composed as a writing piece.

2.    What purpose should it achieve? Audience?

The purpose of a workshop draft is to lay the foundation for your ideas. It is a way to organize the purpose of your essay. The audience that it should be aimed towards is one in which your purpose applies to. A workshop draft in response to a scientific journal would not have the same audience as one responding to a political debate.

3.    How does the purpose and/or audience differ from a finished draft?

The finished draft has the ideas of a workshop draft composed as a thorough and organized essay. The ideas are brought together in closure and contain evidence as well as supporting commentary. The audience perceives a better understanding of the author’s purpose and sees the ways in which it is trying to be achieved.

VT Composition pg 62 Exercise 4m

Everyone has a different style of writing. The steps you take to go through in writing usually define the type of writer you are and how your writing is influenced. When I write, I usually prefer to be alone and somewhere quiet. Typically, a place like that would be in my room or at the library. I feel that when I’m alone and have my own space, my thoughts flow freely without distractions and allow me to quickly write my ideas down. For many writing assignments, I tend to write using a keyboard. The efficiency and speed of a keyboard help me move my thoughts along smoothly and write at a faster pace than if I were to write by hand. The conditions I write in correlate to where I write. Those conditions would consist of a solitude place where there are no distractions. Nevertheless, even writing in my room or at the library in a quiet condition, I always use the strategy of listing ideas to quickly jot my thoughts down before forgetting them. I usually do not outline because I feel as though I would forget my ideas while taking the time to outline, but by merely listing ideas, I can go back to them as a reference for points I wanted to make.

            During my drafting process, I often use my first draft to simply cluster my ideas into a set of words. By the second draft, I use for organization but concentrate less of grammatical or spelling structure, and by my final draft, I build all the pieces together. I use role revision in my second draft by rereading what I have wrote and placing myself in the perspective of my audience. I do this to see whether my audience would be able to understand my purpose and commentary from simply the information I have provided them with.

            My ideal writing circumstances revolve around my ideal writing environment. That would be one where it is a well-lit room, quiet, and free from outside distractions. Workshop and peer review experiences have showed me that my processes to get to my final draft are helpful. The first two drafts allow my peers to give good feedback and it also creates a leeway for new ideas. My writing process differs from some of my classmates in the sense that not everyone is willing to make their first and second drafts loose in context to give room for peers to make additions to the paper without altering its purpose. However, similarities between my writing and that of my classmates’ is that we tend to write in a comfort zone, such being our room. Strategies I want to try in my writing process are outlining. Although I am not a fan of outlining, I believe that it would be good in helping me improve my first draft. I would aim to outline after listing ideas. One part of my writing process that is unhelpful is always writing in my room or the library. I believe that if I tried a new environment, new ideas may also stir in my mind.

 

 

 

 

 

Exercise 2h - Bryan West Article

1.              I believe that the rhetorical analysis by Bryan West is in response to Gabriel McVey’s “Do Not Be Fooled by the Clinton’s Again” in the midst of the 2008 presidential election. I believe the writer’s main purpose is to show that McVey was unsuccessful in persuading the readers of the Collegiate Times that Hillary Clinton is an unqualified candidate for the presidency. The writer shows this by suggesting that people’s opinions cannot easily be persuaded, especially in matter related to politics and McVey’s attempts were a failed attempt. The audience appears to be college students, or more particularly, Collegiate Times readers. The audience for West may also be his professor. The audience seems to be apparent because the article was written for Ms. Reed’s class and the West also specifies that his paper is in response to an article featured in the Collegiate Times.

2.              Genre conventions that I recognize in the text are that it is a rhetorical analysis and it is also a distinct critical piece. I have written in this genre before for a school paper in response to the historical Iron Curtain Speech. I was to analyze the purpose of the speech and whether or not it was effective or not and in what ways. In this genre, I have read the Black Man’s History by Malcolm X.  Critical pieces are most familiar to me as opposed to simply a rhetorical analysis.

3.              Another genre the writer might have used to achieve the same purposes for the same audience is through sarcasm. This type of writing would allow West to entertain his audience and grab their attention more to get them to agree with his views more. The advantage of writing in the two genres he did is that it was straightforward and informative. The disadvantage was that it became tedious and dull throughout the article.

4.              If the writer was communicating with a younger audience, he would need to adapt his persuasive appeals by using a bit of a more informal approach. The vocabulary in the article would need to be adjusted to fit that of the younger audience. More comparisons to other life situations would need to be made to make connections for easier understanding.

5.              A teacher, a social worker, or a scientist should use ethos in a piece of writing. This would signify their credibility in their field of work and represent that in the paper.

Essay R

        After reading Essay "R," I would give the essay a grade of a D. At the beginning of the essay, it appeared as though the writer was going to write a well written essay on the changes that have occurred in wrestling from the 80's up to modern day. The essay started off fairly well by introducing it's audience to the names of popular wrestlers from both the past and present day. This technique was useful in attempting to familiarize particular people in the audience that are not familiar with professional wrestling. 

        It was towards the second paragraph that the essay became too informal and the author's purpose was not found nor supported. Throughout the essay, I was unable to find a thesis which immediately made it a weak essay. Also, the essay was poorly written in regards to the author's word choice and syntax. The author made inappropriate statements in his essay such as "they shoot WWE magazines constantly, and a couple of them have even posed for playboy," and "realized women could put on a good showing in the ring and gave them a shot." These statements shows women in a degrading perspective and I also believe it is inappropriate to write about how some of the female wrestlers were in playboy. That aspect of the essay in no way defended the author's view that professional wrestling has changed from the 80's as stated in his title. 

       The author's vocabulary was also vulgar in other areas of the essay. The sentence where he was trying to state that television shows contain a lot of atrocious language, it was unnecessary to use those words in his paper, "hearing a**, sh*t, d*mn, b*tch." This sentence was inappropriate and it did not relate to the rest of the essay. The author also posed too much of his opinions towards the end of the essay in such a manner that made it seem as though he was talking to someone as opposed to writing a formal essay. Lastly, the author had only one source to support his paper and it did not seem to be a reliable source since it was taken from a website. It was only the first paragraph that contained any citations and the rest of the paper did not.