Journal #3- “The art of Quoting”
Amanda Gorham
After reading the passage “The Art of Quoting” in They say, I say it became clear that the skill of quoting we were shown to do in high school is far from the proper way from how one should quote when writing a journal, essay or report. When writing or using quotes the writer usually can see the big picture of the work and knows where they want their work to go or the end result of it and forget that the reader is not on the same mind set as the writer and things that make sense to the author may come across as choppy or out of place to the reader. In high school if we were writing a essay or prompt that needed quotes to back up ones thoughts to make it “easier” some English teachers would allow us to only use certain sections of a quote as long as we included 3 dots to show that the quote started before or ended after, “…..*the part of the quote we wanted to use*” or “*part of the quote we used*……” and after they would require that we had at least a sentence explaining the quote. Though some people in my classes liked it more because it required less work in finding a quote and made it easier for them to make the quote “fit” with what they were trying to say and then do a quick sentence half explaining it and move on to the next quote or topic. At times I found it easier than trying to find a quote that would work with the thought better but most of the times I found it harder than just finding a full quote that better supports my ideas and overall work. While some of my class mates just start and end the quote where they felt it was right while I had a harder time trying to decide where I should start and end it to better fit my thoughts if I should use that quote at all or even try to break up the quote instead of finding another one. Now after reading the passage I realize that the way mu high school approached us selecting quotes, in some ways, makes it harder for me to pick a quote and even though quotes can be 2-3 sentences in length, since we always broke them up to make them shorter I feel like making them long in length is something I should not do.
Journal #4
“The end of food” quotes
Amanda Gorham
- “ Most Meals are forgotten” -page 3 second paragraph. This quote stuck out to be since we just finished writing our essays about our favorite meals and Rhinehart is suggesting that most of the meals we eat are forgettable. When I first read the quote I felt like I was in disagreement with Rhinehart for I just wrote an essay about how one certain meal was so important to me making it my favorite, but upon rereading the article I was able to see more of his point to his quote. Sure we all have one, two, three meals we all love and look forward to eating for the same or different reasons nonetheless those meals stand out to us among the others we’ll eat in our life times, but what about the other meals? The ones we eat in a hurry just so we won’t be hungry for our next classes or to hold us over until its time for the next big meal that day or the meals we don’t really think about when we eat them they’re just there and we might enjoy them in that moment but will they still stand out to you in 3 weeks? A good amount of people when asked what they had for breakfast last week on a certain day can’t remember what they ate or for the “in between” meals would they be worth giving up for Soylent if it meant it was a faster way of fulling your body’s needs.
- “Last week, the first thirty thousand units of commercially made Soylent were shipped out to customers across America.” -page 3 first paragraph. Not long after Soylent started to become a trend on the internet and spread across the country thousands of people from all over were jumping aboard the idea of Soylent to try to new drink for themselves. Although Rhinehart had been using nothing but Soylent for three months and seemed only to be healthier than when he was eating solid foods for his meals, doesn’t mean it will work for everyone else who tries it the same for as everyone’s bodies react to things differently than everyone else’s. They also are unaware of short term or long term effects Soylent may cause on one’s body or if their body may have a reaction to one of the ingredients that Soylent is produced with, just because Rhinehart as had nothing but good results with the drink does not mean in 10,15, 20 years down the road his body will be feeling as good as it is now, there may be underlying side effects that have yet to be discovered. Growing up my mother never wanted us to get the shots that just came out for she was worried about what it could cause when we got older or if like her we would have any allergic reactions to the new medications. It may have something to do with how I grew up but the way 30,000 people had already signed up to try Soylent in such little time stood out to me.
Journal #7-
Amanda Gorham
Professor Miller
English 110
- What global comments/suggestions did you find best from your peers? Why?
One overall global comment shared by my peers that helped me better improve my essay was to watch out for run on sentences, and sentence structures. Fixing my sentence structures would make the flow of the essay easier for readers to read and better understand where one idea ends and another starts.
- What were the best global comments/suggestions you offered your peers? Why?
I think the best global comment/suggestion I gave my peers was feedback on how they included their personal thoughts and statements into the essay. Another thing that I thought my peers did well was including their Favorite Meal Essay into the flow of the essay making it clear for the reader exactly why they loved that meal and why it means so much to them.
- What important feedback/discussion points weren’t captured on the page that came up during your discussion? Be specific and reference your peers and their papers. You may benefit from looking back over the essays you peer reviewed.
One point I wish we had discussed more was how to better fit in thoughts and ideas from both Rhinehart and Widdicome into the essay as well as adding in my own personal thoughts so that they all flow with the rest of the essay and so that the reader can understand all of the view points clearly.
- What did you wish had come up looking back over your peer review comments?
I think my peers covered everything that they wanted to when peer reviewing my essay and made a lot of good points that better helped me understand how to approach and fix some of the problems I had so I could go back and fix them better. They also pointed out areas that they thought I did good in which also helped me when I went back to work on the final draft.
- How does this kind of peer review compare to peer review from high school?
In high school when we would peer review the teacher would pair us up randomly and depending on the teacher, sometimes we would just spend the remaining class time reading over and peer reviewing the other person’s work and hand it back to them by the end of class. Other teachers would give it for homework instead and you would look it over that night and bring it back in the next day/class. Although some people liked it because it was quick and the teacher never checked to see if/how much each person had done it and just move on, others did not like it for they felt that their worked hadn’t actually been reviewed carefully and there for offered them no help when it came to the final draft. Others felt since we were never told what to look for in the essays it made it harder for us to learn how to peer review instead of helping us in the long run.
Journal # 8- They say/I say pp19-29
Amanda Gorham
Professor Miller
English 110
After reading They say, I say pp 19-29 and reading how to include what others say into essays and what makes the right approach or wrong approach I found the templets that are provided to be helpful resources for when I have to write my next essay. One template that I found useful was the Introducing Something Implied or Assumed for that if you are trying to find a quote to back up one of your points in a article or essay but cannot find the right quote that you think would best fit with your thoughts you could use the-Although X does not say so directly, she apparently assumes that ____. Even if you couldn’t find a quote to use for a certain point you could still get your point across to the readers without using the writers direct words. The other template I liked in the reading was the- Introducing an ongoing debate because it shows how to be able to give one point of argument and then how to argue against it without simply stating that the other person is wrong in their thinking and yours is the right way. In some arguments there is a right and wrong side and there are times were the sides aren’t as clear or straightforward but nonetheless people still have their own thoughts and the ability to voice them. Not only is this template useful for when writing but it is also a useful skill for everyday life as you will at one point or another clash with another person’s thinking or beliefs, and being able to see both sides of a argument is key.
Journal #10- Memories of past meals
Amanda Gorham
Professor Miller
English 110
Picture 1: When looking at the picture you can see the joy painted on all their faces as their school year came to a end but also the excitement of being able to make the crepes over their Bunsen burners. I also like how after that day of making them in class he still makes crepes to celebrate something which reminds him of his last days of school.
Picture 2: After reading about picture 2 I find it interesting that just a simple sandwich like that could create lifelong memories for two sisters, but then me and my sister share a similar experience as the author and her sister. Growing up me and my sister would go to a all day horse camp where you would bring your own lunches, seeing how both my parents worked it was hard for them to think of creative meals every time went to camp. My mother would usually give us a Peanut butter and fluff sandwich (or Nutella) with at least a snack or two. They certainly weren’t fancy meals but for some reason they were some of the best sandwiches I had. When I think back on those lunches the memories include sitting on the wooden bench by the small pond in the summer heat clutching your lunch box close so when the donkeys came around you wouldn’t have it stolen from you.
Picture 3: Sometimes a meal you would not normally think about eating for various reasons can become something you’d never forget. What makes that way can vary for example if you’ve spent a good amount of your life thinking you wouldn’t like it or hate it and you try it and it taste nothing like you thought it would can make it stand out to one more than they thought it would at first thought.
Picture 4: After reading about picture 4 I don’t get why she would act as if she hated it and spit it back out in front of her mother and insult it the way she did when she knew her mother clearly enjoyed the pudding and making it. Growing up when I was a baby and old enough to eat more “solid” foods my mother would make spinach quiche and cut it up into small pieces so I could pick it up with my fingers and eat it that way. It was one of the few meals that my parents could get me to eat growing up and even today when my mother makes her spinach quiche there’s never any left over.
Picture 5: In some ways I can relate to the author in picture 7 for when I was younger both me and my sister were picky eaters and were hard to please when it came to finding a meal we’d both eat. But also when I was 11 my entire family on my moms side (all 23 of us) went to Italy for a week over April vacation to see the hill my great grandfather’s family used to own. While I loved the trip and miss Italy and wish I could go back, while we were there by day 4 me, my sister, and all my cousins were just about done with eating pasta and salads everyday 2 meals a day. Though those weren’t the only options we had for us but none of us were interested in eating the seafood that looked weird and smelled different so we stuck with pasta, though I used to say I could live off pasta by half way through the week I never wanted to touch pasta again and just wanted a burger or something closer to that and so did a good amount of my cousins.
Picture 6: After reading about picture 6 I would like to know why they decided to have pork chops after not bring able to eat at the restaurant. Was it because they enjoyed the meal and liked them or was it because it might’ve been easy for them to make.
Picture 7: Though my family loves watermelons and most of us love shrimp, not including myself, we did have a desert that we would bring out every summer that was related to watermelon, it just wasn’t a actual watermelon. Ever since I was little every party we had by our pool my mother would buy the watermelon roll from Friendly’s. Sitting by the pool in the hot summer sun while the cool pink white and green ice cream slowly melted in the sun will always be a fun memory.
Picture 8: After reading about the author in this story it reminded me of my younger sister because since she was a young girl she has loved pickles and every time we went to a restaurant and you had pickles she either ask if she could have them or simply stare at you until you got annoyed enough and gave them to her if you wanted them or not.
Journal #12- TS/IS Chapter 14
Amanda Gorham
Professor Miller
ENG 110
While reading Chapter 14 “What’s Motivating this Writer?” a section I found helpful towards my future writing was the Deciphering The Conversation. This section stood out to me because it made me stop and think about how many possible sides there could be to one argument, and that not everything in it is just black and white. When reading a paper or journal it is important to figure out what the views the author is responding to/ what their own argument to it is, if you are unable to make these out on your own then the message and point of why the wrote what they did is lost on readers. As important it is for the readers to understand the authors point it is also important that the author is able to relay their message in a way that their readers could understand where they stand in the sides they are faced with or if they don’t agree with either side. Another section of the chapter that stood out to me was that of When the “They say” is unstated because it explains how if the author doesn’t does not just straight up say what their thoughts on a subject and leaves the readers “in the dark” they have to decide what the authors thoughts are based on inference from what they said in the rest of their work.
Amanda Gorham
Journal #13-
Two significant moves I made while revising paper #2 was going back and rearranging the flow of the essay so it was less jumpy and trying to better connect two paragraphs, as well as rereading Pollan’s work to find more concept ideas that could be used in my essay. Going back to reread ones essay can be useful for multiple reasons such as being able to work on sentence structures to make it easier for the readers to understand. Another thing you can notice when you back and reread is the actual paragraph flow and structure itself, you might realize you do not like the order of the ideas they hold in them or the order of the whole paragraph itself. Being able to go back and switch the ideas around so they flow better is important but so is making sure the paragraph before it connects to the one that follows it so that your ideas flow easily throughout the essay and so the reader is aware of where your work is going. Another move I made while working on my second paper was going back to read Pollan’s essay to try to find more concepts idea he put forth in his essay rather than just using his quotes as examples throughout the whole paper. Going back and finding concepts could also be used to go relate it back to my peers work in my own essay to add more view points to my own work and help get the message get across. Using Pollan to connect it to other people’s work help shows how people have connections in their thinking of why meals and food as a whole is important to them and what meals have become a part of who they are as a person.
Journal #14- Podcast
Amanda Gorham
Professor Miller
English 110
The first time I went to a funeral I was 8 years old looking at a picture of my uncle next to the stand where my family members made their goodbyes and shared memories with the others around me. At the age of 8 I didn’t fully understand what was going on, only that everyone around me was sad, as was I but I didn’t understand why I had to be sad. The first time I understood the sadness of a funeral and the topic of death of a whole, was standing in the wake room the morning of my grandfathers funeral. At 11 years old I understood what had happened and why he was gone but at the same time I didn’t understand why he had to leave, it didn’t come quickly it was a long 6 months for my mother and her brothers, and no one imagined this would be how we would spend Thanksgiving together. Like she mentioned in the pod cast sometimes when you only see the body for a short amount of time that image may last in your brain longer than one may think. When my grandfather was in the hospital my family agreed to grant his wish of allowing grandchildren to see him sick, something I still have mixed feelings about to this day. At the time of his death he had lost 75 pounds and when I saw him in the wake he looked like a completely different man than I had known my whole life and the man in the pictures scattered around the room. My sister and cousin being only 9 didn’t fully understand the concept of death, and confused of how fast everything seemed to be happening stood close throughout the whole process hardly speaking a word until we had lowered the coffin into the resting site. Now older we both have a better understanding of both death and the process, one thing that I found interesting with my own experience was in some ways I remember being more sad at my grandfather’s funeral rather than my grandmothers, because I loved them equally as did my sister, maybe it had something to do with the fact with I was 15 almost 16 rather than 11 as you get older it might get easier for some to grasp the concept of death and understand that your loved one is no longer in pain and maybe even reunited with loved ones who had left before them. My family being catholic the thought of them being reunited with a spouse they haven’t seen in 30 years or their own parents again, helped me get through the process of having to learn to live without them. Today when I talked about how I lost loved ones people can become uneasy or awkward and try to change the subject, for they think that talking about them will hurt, although I miss both of them I also enjoy talking about them to others or with my family and laughing thinking back on memories I had of them. I feel like the topic of death as a whole is a subject people try to tip toe around when we should be doing the opposite, it doesn’t mean we should talk about it day in and day out but it is part of our lives and cultures and shouldn’t be pushed back out of conversations until you have to talk about it.
Journal #16-
Amanda Gorham
ENG 110
Professor Miller
For me I haven’t really ever stopped and really thought about consciousness before, there have been times were I’ve thought about it briefly but never actually sat down and thought about what causes. Everyday our brains recieve information and then process the information that we use to make our everyday choices, big or small. But what causes it? Why do we as humans experience consciousness and as far as we believe not every other species experience it as well? Some animals are able to display actions that lean towards the argument that they too have a line of consciousness that they base their choices off as well. Another thing that grabbed my attention was does the idea of thinking come from the same part of your brain as consciousness or are they the same thing in humans or other species? Although some animals show that they may have a stream of consciousness but at the same time they don’t understand certain things, for example horses are animal known to be self aware and have shown consciousness but at the same time if they see a plastic bag they run like it’s the end of the world, or if there’s a chair that wasn’t there 37 seconds ago its also the end of the world. For them it may be part of their fight or flight instinct or does it have more to do with the size of their brains and therefore do not understand that a plastic bag cannot eat them, although they’ll insist that it really can. After reading the article I would like to learn more about consciousness and how it works and where it comes from.
