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.