Final

With time goes by, this semester is gong to end. Before I took ENGL 151, I always thought I knew how to write the essay of English Argument. But when I was in the class and started to work on my first argument essay, I realized that I was not good enough for the aspect.

Recall my first essay, I only employed two credible resources, and most of the contents was from my words and personal experience. Although the topic of the first essay is familiar to me, I still require searching some academic resource to prove or support my points since it is academic writing. Then in next three essays, I employed a lot of resources. Thus, searching credible resource and properly adding in essays are the specific skill I learned. Another specific skills is writing with logic, ethos, and pathos. Before that, I learned I must ensure the theme and core points of the essay. When I am going to explain a problem, a trend, or a phenomena, I should begin my essays with credible contents like examples and statistics so that readers would know why it is necessary to talk about. After that, I can use emotion in debate or argument so that people would resonate with my essay. Also, I should create an essay with logic. For example, if I am going to explain how to solve a problem, I can first introduce why the problem appear, and then give the solving methods based on the reasons. Plus, the last thing I learned for academic argument writing is that I need to respect the opposite arguments in my essays. 

For improving my academic writing, I reread and rewrite my essays several times, and check if I employ logic, ethos, and paths. I also check if the resources is proper for what I state. Finally, I check my grammar. For research skills, I force myself to read as much as I can. Certainly, I use the skill "reading long articles" I picked up from library lecture that go through the abstract first. Honestly, I think Improved my academic writing and research skills when I am creating a new essay because I can practice these processes again. And I tried to avoid the mistakes I made in the previous essays when I was writing the new essays.  The skill that I am most proud of is reading skills because I read a lot of writing from textbooks and internet resources. And I try to copy the way that authors create their essay. But finding resources is still a challenges for me because sometimes I can not find the contents I exactly require. Meanwhile, I have to spend a lot of time rewriting the resources into my own words. 

Is Google Making Us stupid ?

Is Google Making Us stupid ? was written by Nicholas Carr, who writes on the social, economic, and business implications of technology.  In this essay, Carr argues that the Internet is having a disturbing effect on our cognitive activities - the work of our brains. Therefore, the author speculated effects in the essay. In genera, Carr stated that the Internet would weaken our capacity for the kind of deep reading, change people's minds and thoughts, and people might become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine in the end. These are three main effects Internet has on our cognitive activities.

To make this essay credible and make more people be aware of the dangerous  of Internet, the authors used several ethos, pathos, and logos. First, Carr gave several examples and researches of his personal experience and academic resources to shows people that people almost totally lost the abilities to read, and absorb a longish article on web or in print. Specifically, he took himself, his friends, and even a pathologist of Michigan Medical School as examples, and they had the similarly experience that they had to pay much attention and energy so that they can focus on long pieces of writing. Besides, the author showed the results of long-term neurological and psychological experiments that many people go online to avoid reading in traditional sense. More, he used the words of a developmental psychologist at Tufts University to state that we are losing the abilities of interpreting text and making the rich mental connections. Thus, all of those credibly began Carr's theme he would discuss next. 

Second, Carr put pathos to argue that the human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard driver. He criticized the idea that our minds should operate as high-speed  date processing machines is built both into the workings of the Internet and the network's reigning business model. Because the faster we surf across the Web- the more links we click and pages we views, the more economic interest and profits was created for the business companies. Plus, Carr also represented his emotion in the last paragraph that he afraid of the fact that people people work as machines without thoughts, and it is our own intelligence that flattens in artificial intelligence. 

Third, to explain why people's minds would be changed by Internet, Carr used logos. In the beginning, he stated that people's brains can be taught to work differently in some cases. Then Carr gave the example of Friedrich Nietzche, who bought a typewriter to help his writing. But the tool took part in the forming of his thoughts. In this case, Carr reveal the point that human brain is always infinitely malleable in some cases such as a new tool. Similarly, since Internet is a communication system that plays so many roles in our lives, and people rely on it whenever and wherever, the author stated that people' s minds are gradually become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media, traditional media have to adapt to the audience's new expectations. In other words, the Internet is reprogramming us today. Till now, we have to admit that our minds can be changed in some ways by his statements. Therefore, Carr was able to logically describe how do people become so machinelike that the most human character turns out to be a machine due to the reprogramming of our minds.   

Fitness Culture

"Fitness Culture" was written by Sheila McClain who speculated about the causes of the fitness culture. At the beginning of this essay, she used some data and research to state that the "fitness culture" in America continues to grow and shows no signs of slowing down. She also gave a graph to show the increase of fitness culture. Then Sheila stated the effect of fitness culture first before causes. The main effect of this phenomenon is it contribute to health and longevity. After that, she listed several reasons that people work on fitness and join fitness clubs. These causes included being part of a community, reducing stress, improving body image and having fun. 

Individually, I agree with some points Sheila wrote in this essay, but some other ideas surprised me a lot. First, for the effect that contribute to health and longevity, I completely agree with it! There is no doubt that doing exercise helps people improve the fitness and reduce the possibly of being ill. Actually, I have started to do a lot of exercise since I was in primary school because I was the member of the school fitness club. Not only did I performed very good in most athletic activities, I was the most health and strong child around my classmates. I was less likely to get ill than other children in my class. Second, I do believe that improving body image is a cause of fitness culture and I have been building my body till now. Because I think having a nice body image is much more competitive and outstanding among my peers. Gradually, I consider exercise is a kind of lifestyle for me, and have to keep always it. I feel hopeful when I do exercise as I believe I'll become stronger. Although improve the social community should be a plausible cause that most people work on fitness, it doesn't work for me. I never make any friends when I do exercise. But I still believe that groups exercise fosters  positive peer pressure that keeps people going when they might give up were they exercising along at home. One of my roommates keeps going on fitness by group exercise. Another surprising point is "traveling less provided many people with more leisure time to fill after 9/11." It can be true that people consider doing exercise as a new entertainment, and today exercise have a variety of forms which meets the tastes for different people. 

In order to make these cause credible, Sheila used a lot of outside resource to support her points. And she gave several resources for one point that strongly prove her guesses. Thus, each of these cause was an educational guesses. Plus, the fitness clubs can reflect the living attitudes of local people. More population of fitness clubs means the people are more healthy and energetic. 
   

English 151 is the most challenging course for academic writing I've ever had, but I learn a lot from the class and make improvement in my academic reading and writing. In the previous English course such as English 186, 187 and 150, I was only ask to write 3-4 page with little outside evidence and research, but I have to write 5-7 page with enough academic research for the essays in this class. Till now, I created three essays included evaluation, argument and problem-solving, and each of them teaches me a lot abut how to successfully write an essay. 

In the first essay I chose the topic about textbooks because I thought it was really related to our life. My main point was textbooks is too expensive for students. Thus, I tried to describe how costly the textbooks was and why it was a finance burden  for undergraduate students. Although we used some research in the essay, it was not enough and not credible. Most part of the essay were from my own words and opinion. Besides, I should considered the opposite problem. In other words, I only stated the negative aspects rather than respect the opposite opinion. 

Therefore, I tried to avoid these problems in the second essay that I argued people shouldn't overuse mobile phone. In order to employ the critical analysis in the essay, not only did I describe the seriousness of overusing mobile phone around the world, I stated why people did that and what can mobile help us. However, I made many mistakes in using outside researches and strongly presenting my position. 

But it's OK, I made some improvement in the second work at least. For the third essay, I concluded the mistakes I made and then tried to create a better essay. Till now, I recognize I should consider or respect the opposite points such as the why the problem exist and why the problem is hard to solve; I know I have to use credible evidence to prove or support my points; I learn how to logically organize an essay and present my position strongly; I know I should attract attention at the beginning of my work and conclude the main points in the end. 

Certainly, I still have some weakness in academic writing. I can hardly avoid the grammar mistakes in writing, and my vocabulary is not large enough. Thus, I can not completely present what I want to say in essay. Also it is hard to get good academic research for my points, and sometimes I have to use much time to concluded the ideas of the outside research into my essay. And I am working on representing my ideas in detail using marshal evidence and observation to support judgement.

Finally, I realize that creating these three essays is process of building up my writing strategies. The first essay formed the base for the second essay while the first and  second essays formed the base for the third essay. In other words, the last essay is the combination of the first and second works. Specifically, we should present the problem and our position at first, analysis the opposite aspects and support our position by evidence, and offer the solution in the end.  

Sheldon Art Museum Evaluation

Sheldon Art Museum was designed and founded by Philip Johnson in 1880. There are more than 12000 artworks in diverse media. The museum's collections of American artworks includes sculptures, paintings, photographs, abstracts and so on. Last Friday was my second time to visit this museum, and some interesting artworks impressed me a lot.

The Sanctuary was one of the most distinctive artworks located in the second floor of this museum. It was built by Helen Evans Ramsaran in 1994, whose work reflects diverse cross-culture traditions. In this artwork, Ramsaran expressed her interest in African ancestral rites by creating a set of sculptural objects that look as if the could be integral to such ceremonies. 

In general, the work comprises a ring of bronze tree-like forms. As the picture suggests, there are eight thin bronze rods fixed by a circular base, and all parts of this sculpture was painted by white. Consider the forms as trees, each tree has the different distribution and number of "leaves". But the heights of each trees are approximately equal, and it seems that two "seedlings" are in the top of each tree. In my opinion, eight trees and their leaves symbolically represent a lively forest, and white means a scared and peaceful place. The work's stark, almost skeletal structure is meant to convey a silent energy that offers me a meditative experience. Thus, we can also consider there are eights distinctive heroes protecting this scared forest and standing around this land. And their spines becomes these trees finally (Actually, I thought the forms was more like bones at first). 

The Sanctuary is a sculpture between the abstract and representation. It offers some abstract meaning to me. With the light from the ceiling, we can see it represents eight shadows on the base. Image we move the sculpture in the sun, then the shadows would change by the movement of sun. Each of shadow would be longest in a certain time during a day, which represents different appearance in different time. Therefore, this artwork also suggests the passing of time and the law of nature, and we can predict that the African ancestral rites was related to some natural factors.

More Testing, More Learning

More Testing, More Learning was written by Patrick O'Malley when he was a freshman in college. The topic is about how many tests should students have for each semester. Many professors only give two tests in a semester, midterm test and final test. But Patrick believed that students should have more tests.

After reading this essay, I completely agree with the author's arguments. Study is a process that we have to continuously repeat and review what I learned before. With more tests, students would study  more regularly, perform better on tests, and enhance their cognitive functioning. In my personal experience in math, one of my professors gave us quizzes weekly and 4 midterm. In this case, I reviewed the knowledge every week and did nice performance in all quizzes and tests. Also, I found learning math becoming easily that I never worried about the exams as long as I studied regularly.

In order to prove his points, Patrick gave several bullet points. High-stakes exams do long-term damage to students' cognitive development; It improves students' study habits and learning; It also reduces their anxiety and procrastination, and increases their satisfaction with college. I really agree with the improvement of study habits. Greater frequency in test taking means greater frequency

 in study for test. Since I took math a quiz every Friday, I gradually get used to going over textbooks and notebooks at each Thursday night. Although I would probably be very busy if  all my courses gave me quizzes every week, I could develop my study and learn how to manage my time.

In the first paragraph, Patrick made an assumption for reader that what would happen if there were only two exams each semester. In the third paragraph, the author made an assumption for topic that  how to give many tests in some courses. After showing the bullet points of his arguments, Patrick started that the shortages of having more test and how to solve it. More tests take up too much time of limited class time, and make professors use much time to read and grade. So implementing a program that would improve study skills and providing frequent study questions for students to answer are two alternative ways to solve these problems. Plus, providing a sample test is can help students prepare for exam. Sample tests can reduce anxiety about learning every fact in textbooks or  note books, and clarity the courses. My math sample tests help me save much time and get better performance in exams.

Overall, I learn how to organize an essay of "proposal to solve a problem". First, I can explain how serious the problems is and state my standpoint. Then, I give some reasons and examples to prove the arguments. Finally, I give the solutions for this problems, besides, I must include the objections and questions.

Why not A Football Degree ?

Why not A Football Degree? was  written by William F. Shughart II, who is a distinguished professor at the University of Mississippi. In this essay, she disclosed the corruption of the NCAA in college sports as well as some college sport departments. She believed that athletic students in colleges were suffering from unequal treatments due to the rules and regulations of NCAA. She also mentioned these rules and regulations should be changed and improved a lot. Today, money is a serious problem for college, university teams and athletic individuals, although athletes bring wealth and welfare to their school by their considerable contribution, the compensation payable to an athlete is limited by NCAA. Thus, in order to help athletic students make success in both athletic and academic fields, Shuhart proposed three solutions: 1. Created four-year degree program in football and basketball; 2.Extend the time limit on athletic scholarships by two years; 3.Allow a competitive marketplace to determine the compensation of college athletes.

Before I read Shughart's essay, I have ever considered this problem of athletes in college. It surprises me that athletes are not able to get any other payment out of the compensation from their universities. In order to reveal the fact, Shughart's showed us two example, Troy and Rhett. Tory accepted $500 from a Buckeye booster, and Rhett earned substantially more than justified by working at a job arranged for him by a patron. They are both punished finally. As is known to all, expect working on academic subjects, college athletes have to spend much extra time and energy on exercise and practices. In this case, they may have spend more than 4 years to graduate. It is common and reasonable for athletes make some money via other ways. So I agree with the suggestion of author that creating four-year degree programs for these students. It is a good solution to help athletes students reduce academic pressure and economic burden, and we have to admit they make contribution for university as well as wealth. University have the duty to create a degree to recompense them.

NCAA requires all athletes must retain amateur status while some individuals prefer the professional status. Coaches, athletic departments and college administrators could continue to benefit financially at the expense of the player as long as keeping college athletes amateurs. However, some talent athletes would benefit if they were allowed to become professionals. They can directly gain the wealth from market-based systems. Actually, amateur status can protect college athletes indeed. Without the rules of NCAA, athletes may focus on how to make more money by marketplaces, and they may lose themselves and give up sports in this case. Therefore, we should have a balance between amateurs and professionals. On one hand, universities can transfer some money from college sport institutions to individuals, they can also allow limited compensation of college athletes from marketplaces on the other.

The Flight from Conversation

The Flight from Conversation was written by Sherry Turkle, who is the professor of the social studies of science and technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The theme in the essay is about the ways people used in conversation. Some people spend communication with friends and family via texting and e-mail and posting while others prefer to talk with friends and family over the phone or face-to-face. She appeals to have more face-to-face communication.

Sherry gives a credibility topic. She starts this point from our daily life since people have conservation with others every day. But few people are well aware of the fact that we have less face-to-face conversation. In order to represent the problem and her position, she gives some examples in families and businessman who stay together, but texting and reading emails. Besides, They doesn't want to be interrupted.  In this case, we can say that people become accustomed to a new way of being "alone together ". In other words, mobile phone locks people into an isolated world. Also, since people are not willing to talk with someone face to face, the human relationships are losing. Therefore, the crisis of conversation is a serious problem should be concerned.

Sherry employs a lot of research about technologies of mobile connection as evidences in her arguments. She also gives her feelings and emotions to analysis her research. Specifically,   before the author states that technology can create illusion of companionship, she gives the fact that a robot can console a woman who lost child and asks the audiences some questions about this example. I can feel the excitement in these questions: Sherry is trying to describe and explain why people rely on machines so much!

The essay is generally logical. First, Sherry starts the problem from our daily and states the negative effects of texting connection. Second, she describes the values and advantages of face-to-face conversation. Third, she employs some research and study to explain the primary cause why so many people rely on technology. Finally, she fundamentally rejects the texting connection and appeal to her position again. 

Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have 'Nothing to Hide'

Why Privacy Matters Even If You have "Nothing to Hide" was written by Daniel J. Solove, who is  currently John Marshall Harlan research professor of law at the George Washington University Law School. In the beginning of the essay, the author state the topic that if people should care about their privacy when the government gathers or analyzes personal information. Many people are not worried because they think they have got nothing to hide, and believe once they should worry only if they did something wrong. However, Daniel holds opposite opinion that people should pay attention to their privacy even if they have nothing to hide, the government can cause you lot of harm....

I generally agree with the author before I read the essay. Everyone is a distinctive individual because everyone has his or her own stories. And everyone has personal secrets which are significant in some cases. We should give ourselves and others private space. Although the fact that "if you have nothing to hide, then that quite literally means you are willing to let me photograph you  naked? And I get full rights to that photograph－so I can show it to your neighbors?" is pretty extreme, we have to admit nearly no one could have nothing to hide.

In order to prove that privacy is still should be concerned, Daniel declares the government in formation gathering programs are problematic though no information that people want to hide is uncovered, he gives four harms caused by this type of data collection the government used. They are aggregation, exclusion, guilt by association, and distortion. Take the aggregation as an example, since the program collects our living activities, it can also connect these information and then come out some results. These results may cover our personal secrets that we refuse to share. The author give assumption the support the point: if you bought a book about cancer, that won't raise any flags, but if you bought a wig as well, that suggest your are undergoing chemotherapy which may not want to be known. Moreover, he also gives a lot of assumptions in the end of essay to persuade the audiences such as "What if government considers you are engage in a criminal act due to your activities by mistake. 

In conclusion, Daniel did good job in this essay. Mostly he introduces and explains his points based on our social life. Also, not only does he argue directly for his position with reasonable evidence, but anticipates the opposing argument. For instance, Daniel uses the Orwell metaphor, which focus on the harms of surveillance, to stated the importance of government gathering system. Besides, he explained the shortages of the system, which indirectly and credibly convinced the readers. Therefore, anticipating the opposing arguments may also help us prove our points in some case. 

What College Rankings Really Tell Us

The essay What College Rankings Really Tell Us was created by Malcolm Gladwell, who has a BA in history from the University of Toronto. In the essay, he states that though the college ranking system is heterogeneous and comprehensive, but rankings is benign because it is really difficult to evaluate and rank a university. The system is heterogeneous because it is able to compare two universities, such as Pen State and Yeshiva University, which are totally different. The system is also comprehensive since it considers various dimension about a school, and takes statistics on each of them and then analyzes them. However, U.S. News has to work on the variable with proxies, the result is puzzling and  not absolute. It may also miss something important.

After reading the article, the student engagement reminds me lot. Actually, I really care of the engagement. Compare to a good or bad result, the process and what I experience is more important. In my country, most parents plan to let their children stay in a high school with high college enrollment rate, they never consider about what the life is in the school. Indeed, some schools have excellent college-going rate, but the school life is very hard for their students, even like a nightmare! Students in these school have to follow the mechanical assignments every and they are alive as a robot. In this case, I prefer more free study style, I prefer the study style that I can plan my time and life.

Malcolm uses a lot of Assumption to explain the negative part of ranking system. In my opinion, the ranking system is made by the people who have strong ideology to evaluate a university. But those students who has the different or even opposite thoughts with these experts may miss some good school. Since the ranking system makers considered some distinctive dimensions which they believe are more valuable, they miss some basic aspects, such as price, which public groups care more. The best universities should care these qualified students who can not afford their college fee because these students can help the school gain more great academic result. The students graduated from prestigious is usually more popular with companies. To have a better future, a bright high-school senior chooses the highly selective university can create more chance to have an enviable job.

To the college value, it can help individuals improve themselves and make success in the future. It can also make some research results to improve social life quality. 

Academic Writing English

This is the first time that I create my blog,  at first I am going to share my feelings. I am really excited that I can start my blog now. Actually, I planed to writing something like blog long ago, but I always miss it due to various reasons. And to my surprise, I haven't expected that I would writing my first blog in English! 

I chose English 151 because of the requirement of my college, Art and Science. I have to take two courses about academic writing. Since academic writing is a challenge to me, and English 151 helps international students form the base of academic writing, I decided to take English 151 which may help my improve this part. 

I have a lot of experience of academic English writing. Before I come to America, to be honest, I knew English from early age. At that time, academic writing asked me to write a paragraph for a topic or describe a picture in English. I remembered the academic writing was always the last part of English exam.  In recently two years, I had this experience in English class, history class and drama class. I wrote evaluations for drama plays; I wrote essays for different topics in English class; I wrote several history papers(It was the most troublesome works because I had to read a whole book for each paper).
                           

In English 151, I hope I can feel free to writing English. I hope I can do better at organizing my essays with logic in order to persuade readers. Meanwhile, I hope I can feel free to use many references in my paper. However, the biggest challenge in academic writing is that I can not freely express or explain my ideas and thoughts in English. In this case, writing papers always takes me a lot of time. Also, I am easily tired when I read an essay where there are many new words or complicated sentences.