Final essay

Here is a link to my final essay.

final blog

I would have to say that my writing has improved over this long, long semester. These blogs have annoyed the hell out of me and I have absolutely dreaded writing them. I have come to the long thought out conclusion though that even though I have hated just about every single blog that I’ve done, they have improved my writing not only in style but in complexity. I learned to communicate in the world of blogging and expressing my ideas with adequate information to back my character and expertise up. The multiple reading that we did, even though I never read one all the way through, helped in some way. It really wasn’t to improve my writing but rather to give expressions and ideas of what I already do in my writing. It’s nice to know what you are doing in your writing so that you can express why you chose to put down the words that you did. Back to the stinking blogs once again though. I absolutely hate the damn things. I understand that they helped us in class to express our thoughts on what we read and etc. However, we did this in class the next day. Now I know that not everyone had an opinion in class and some really never said anything in class, but if the discussions were more in depth and required more student involvement, more people may have spoken up. The essays were a very important part of the class that I strongly believed were needed for the class in order to judge and asses the improvement of the students. They were difficult but easily written if the student was knowledgeable in the subject area. They found out how much the student has been paying attention to the objectives of the class and are most of the grade[as they should be].

Essay

I would have posted my essay last night but it was late. Here is the LINK to it.

Pulling Your Hair Out.

I haven't gotten a full draft for my essay yet. I'm working on it and really thinking about it. I know the draft was due today but I have just ran so many ideas together and different thoughts that I have no place to start at. I'm working on an outline and should have a draft done completely tuesday.

Has anyone heard about the New Mexico woman's soccer player. I'm posting a link to her article on the NY Times, to the story on ESPN, and this odd video on the huffington post. This is going to be my story for the essay. It's been all over the internet and the blogs.

Taking an approach.

Hello Everyone. Sorry I missed class today but I'm still not feeling to well. This is my post from yesterday. I didn't have an internet connection or access to the internet so it is late plus my sickness didn't help anything whatsoever.
As far as taking an approach goes. It sounds a lot like a compilation of forwarding and countering to me. With forwarding you present your own ideas on a subject, while in countering you use the "Yes, but" method. Taking an approach is using a persons thoughts and ideas yet improving and expanding on them. There is no longer restating the same ideas as was seen at an elementary level essay. It's like using another person's ideas to prove your points and beliefs. I'm not an expert on this situation like Harris is but what I have picked up is the fact that it is expressing the ideas of another using your own ideas and thoughts on the matter and expanding those ideas, or it is the process of using the ideas of another person to contribute to your own ideas. I know I'm rambling on and on but I really can't find to much to say on the subject. I thought it was pretty straight forward myself. I can't really wright to much on a subject that I find as simple as this one was to me. I really can't say to much about the subject. However, I did realize when reading the article though how much a good writer will do this and not even realize it. I did it mostly through high school and our teacher never called it "taking an approach." We just did our work.

Revising Iliteracy

Either Hedge is really angry with the American people or he is right. I don’t know if enough people are paying attention to him but we should all read his article “America the Illiterate.” Let’s face it we as a population are just about retarded. There are people out there that can’t do simple math to balance their checkbook, with a calculator I might add. I’ve seen it! There are also people that at a grocery store try to use a coupon on the wrong bottle of detergent. They’re excuse is that it looks like the one in the picture. That may be true but there is always a size or special scent that people can’t see in the picture. I worked as a cashier for a small chain of grocery stores in my home area and I can’t tell you how dumb the average population is. This grocery store that I worked in wasn’t in the best neighborhood, but I’m not saying these people were the scum of the earth either. These people were average middle class Americans. They all probably had a TV in their family room and a car in their garage. As Hedge defined the illiterates, these people probably couldn’t understand a loan contract from their bank but surely enough voted for Obama because they fell for simple mind games in his campaign. These illiterates are the mindless zombies that do the same thing every day following the time constraints put on themselves because they want to watch CSI at 9:00. I’m not the best reader in the world and admit that some things in hedge’s article I didn’t understand. This includes many of the complex words. However, I do have the mental capacity to understand what he was saying by trying to understand the words using in text clues, and thus I was able to read the article and find his message in it. Unlike Carr who thinks we as a people are being made stupid by Google, Hedge turns and says that we are stupid because we are entertained at a middle school level and choose not to challenge our minds so that we think at a higher level. We prefer pictures because it’s easier to understand the picture than read the words under it. Next thing we know we’ll be ordering our food from pop-up menus, far out dude.

Now I know I'm not going and doing what the prompt had exactly asked me to do and revised this blog and reposted it but I think I rather post it again to let you read it and then talk about it. Know I have come to the conclusion that in this previous article I was a little harsh of my brothers and sisters of the stars and stripes. People are really smart and can do a lot of amazing things. I understand that after a long hard day at the factory and shop that not to many people want to go home and think to hard. People want to go home and relax and give their minds a break. I understand. I really do cause I try to do the exact same thing if I can. The brain is like a muscle though. You need to continuously work it and use it or you could eventually lose your mind. I have two great examples of that in my life. My father's mother and My mother's grandmother. They are roughly the same age, and were both house wives for most of their lives. The biggest difference between the two however is what they did with their spare times and what they continue to do in their lives and their mental status. My father's mother, Althea, is as sharp as a tack still. She spends most of her time now is spent doing crosswords, sudoku, and other mind challenging games and puzzles. My great grandmother doesn't know the time of year any more. She thought it was thanksgiving on her birthday which is July 12. She has spent most of her life watching her stories. Now I'm not saying this is indefinite proof because there may be a lot more to the differences between them. Maybe I was right that the people are illiterate. They have lost the ability to use their mind in order to complete certain tasks because they haven't used their mind to do so. It's always been mind over matter, but what if our minds don't work?

Countering? I thought it was qualifying.

The whole time that I read the article by Harris on what countering is, I had this little voice in the back of my head going "This sounds a lot like qualifying." I'm not going to lie but it really does seem like that. When you counter you don't argue against or for and opinion but yet you regain credibility for the opinion as you improve upon it or qualify with the opinion. Countering isn't necessarily arguing either nor is it total agreement. Qualifying and countering are the same thing and I'm used to calling it qualifying so I'm going to continue to. I'm not qualifying with Harris here though, I'm giving it a new name. As for the blogs that I read, I'm not so sure either of them really give examples of countering. Profootballtalk.com is really a blog that allows the collection of all information that is pertaining to the national football league. As for instapundit.com, the guy never has his own opinion to anything but as I discussed in the previous blog does more of a forwarding of ideas and opinions. He adds a couple of ideas to a piece that he puts on his blog via a hyperlink to the article. Now this is more the continuation of an Idea. He is not qualifying because he never agrees with an opinion or tries to match it but puts up his own idea of a subject. If he were to qualify with a piece at all he would have to take a position in relation to another opinion in an article rather than give his own opinion to a subject. The difference between the forwarding and countering is that the new opinion refers to the subject of a piece in one and to the opinion in the piece on the subject in the other.

Harris has his very lovely idea of forwarding of ideas. Many different people transfer an article or piece from person to person and forward not only the article but also their own opinions of the article itself. Forwarding in itself is a never ending conversation that spans from person to person in an endless chain of ideas and thoughts that continuously has links added to it as it goes from person to person. I have been following the blog instapundit. Now this blog is not really written by Glen Reynolds but rather is put together by him. The blog is a great example of Harris' idea of forwarding. The major thing he does it post links to multiple articles and pieces on his page and uses small paragraphs to add his ideas. I'm not sure if people can post comments on the blog or not but on many pieces that are posted by Reynolds there is an option to comment on the article. The forwarding idea can be good in the fact that is a conversation allowing people to communicate over the internet. However, most of the time when a person does post a comment that is where he/she enters the conversation yet ends their involvement in it. Ideas go on and on but the person and authors origination the ideas don't. This is one of the biggest problems with the forwarding concept. Instapundit is an example of this forwarding and here is one of the articles that he recently forwarded. Be careful of the website though. It's for guys.

blogs sphere

I don't know exactly what I'm going to say in this blog mainly cause I think I'm over complicating the topic here. How are the blogs and NY times articles I'm reading functioning as a press or news sphere? Truly I think the only reason that blogs are part of the press sphere is do to the fact that people go out and look for blogs that are going to bring them the latest and most interesting news. Not only that but the news and information they might fine is related to topics that they mostly want to hear about. I chose two blogs. One was Instapundit which is a strongly conservative blog and I chose it exactly for that reason because I rather here about topics that are more conservative than here about the ideas of liberals. I also chose Pro Football Talk do to the fact that I love football. I pay a lot of attention to the sport and know a lot about it. I'm no expert but in my never ending quest for knowledge I certainly love this blog because of the insight it provides into NFL teams and the league itself. Using blogs as part of your news sphere can be a problem though. Let me ask who the author is. The writer of the blogs could be some average Joe that doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. Knowing the credibility of the author will give credit to the blog and the writings.

News and blogs.

That was odd. This blog just posted randomly. I hate blogger. Well I hate blogging too. Blogging can cover the news but it is mainly the conversation of the author who wrote it. Blogging can cover any topic. Some bloggers write about what they had for dinner. In relation to them being a part of a news sphere, it is certainly possible. Blogs can be news coming from our peers. The only problem is the fact that most of the bloggers get their information from the press. These writers don't sent in the middle of congress and listen in on the meetings and report on it. They find articles on the web and watch the tube and find out information. If you read a blog for news you might as well and go talk to your grandmother who has just good enough vision and hearing to watch to TV and get the news from her dimensia stricken brain and get the news from her. It could be just as accurate. That's one thing that I didn't understand about Jarvis' article about the news sphere. Most of the time you still get your information from the media or news, it just comes second hand. Relating the news sphere to Sullivan's article on "Why [he] blogs" is just as simple as stating that blogging is a part of the news sphere. Sullivan writes blogs for the challenge of keeping up with the current news that he finds. We read the blogs and find out what he interpreted the media to be saying. Why Sullivan blogs is to keep up with the news.

Okay. Um well let's see. What the hell did that guy say about the sphere's and the news? I really have no idea. I got more information form his poorly drawn diagrams than his wording. I read the article multiple times and really didn't understand what he was talking about. I understood the fact that we no longer get all of our information from one source. We spread our sources all over the internet, different TV channels, and multiple magazines and newspapers. The press sphere incorporates the idea of us finding out multiple pieces of information from all over and around us. The news isn't just information either now, it is the communication of the world around us that is centered at the individual instead of the community. Let's face it too. The media no longer focuses on news and current events that may be the most important anymore either. They focus on the stories and topics that are going to get the individual to watch a particular channel or read a certain paper so that they have better ratings and/or a profit. I hate reading the news and seeing the news. The reason why is exactly what Jeff Jarvis tells us. He states that the news can create a news story and it generally does so. It's true too. The news is so bias that it cannot no longer be trusted and the news sphere that we participate allows us to decipher the information and lets us find our own truth in the overload of fact and fiction.

My experience reading.

I no read good and or write good either so i cant understand all this stuff. No that's not true I just hate a lot of it. Checking up on these post and the new york times all the time is starting to get onto my nerves. I didn't mind the blog post to much in the first half of the semester, but all of this reading and writing is really starting to give me a headache. I think I'm turning dyslexic too. Now what have I been reading about? So much that I don't really remember all of it to very much. I have read about priests who have kids and the church covering it up and the crack downs on marijuana in California. I read today about a family in good 'ol Britain who were being secretly followed by the police because they thought a mom forged her address to get her kids into a different school. First off, can't they just look up the address where she is living and see if it matches the paperwork or something like that? Second, do the police and investigative personnel in Britain really have nothing else to do? When I'm looking through the Times I'm looking for a lot of the controversial articles that relate to a lot of our everyday activities. I don't want to hear about a journalists escape from the Taliban cause it's not going to bother me. He should make a book out of it cause its a cool story but it's not news I'm looking for. I'd like to know what Obama plans on doing with the war in Iraq and stuff like that or how many were killed in Afghanistan. And I'd like to here the whole story. Not always how many marines were killed in a raid but also how many terrorists. I want the news to explore both sides and report the news and not be discriminate on what they show. With that being the case I only try to read what looks to meet those terms.

My blogs?

Was anyone else really busy yesterday? I was. I was catching up on multiple articles for this post. I was looking at my blogs and assessing them. I found out that one of the blogs that I follow really isn't a guys thoughts or even his own worlds. Instapundit.com is published by Glen Reynolds and is mainly a bunch of articles that he goes onto the web and finds that he thinks are interesting. His collection of articles particularly reflect a republican point of view, but they consist of editorials and other things. It is quite interesting some of the things that he does put on his blog. I was reading not to long ago about why some scientists believe that the baby boomer generation may experience higher cancer rates than other generations. It is because of a strontium isotope from nuclear explosions that the generation received while they were little. I find this pretty cool and what I like about it is, it isn't political. The other blog I've been following is Profootballtalk.com. It is published by Micheal David Smith and Josh Alpher. The posts of these two men briefly explain what is going on in the national football league. It covers everything from injury reports to upcoming games and who is trading who. It even covers a lot of the personal stuff going on with some players. It's not like a tabloid but it does talk about arrests and accusations against players or things like how family members who have family on different teams are going to support both teams. It's a neat website that lets you know what's going on in the league and contains a lot of facts and very little argumentation about whose team is better than the others. I would definitely suggest it to any other football fan.

I'm following who?

First off I will be following the blog Instapundit. I read his first article and sounds relatively interesting. The second will be on profootballtalk.com
I love football and love to talk about it. A lot of it is opinionated and should be good discussion.

Okay. I’m really tired and don’t want to write this, however, for the discussion of the class and what all of us do in order to gain the news that we read, I’ll try to write this as best as possible. I’ll try not to ramble on like I’m doing now. We all find out our news and different days we do it different ways. However I did realize a trend in how we get our news as a class. One of the biggest things that all of us do is talk to each other to find out what is going on in this crazy world. Most of the time it is a he said, she said account that we get. Not to many of us it seemed go out and look for the news and rather come upon the news, whether we’re watching TV and happen to catch a segment upon the local network channels, or if it comes on the radio as a news alert. We may be surfing the web and come upon a sight which may have different links with simple briefings on the news they are covering. I know I’m rambling on and completely sound like a dumbass, but I’m just seeing everything we do to get most of our news as simple and nothing out of the ordinary. It’s natural to us as people who are involved in our community. Not many of us care what’s going on in Egypt or Thailand because it doesn’t pertain to us and we don’t have to have it to be functioning members in our community.

Wait, what news?

News comes in many different shapes and forms. What I mean is that news can cover many different subjects. The news that I enjoy the most is sports. I love watching football and love to keep up to date with it. I know most of the teams’ records in the NFL and can tell you who they are playing this weekend. I’m not one who cares what Angelina Jolie and Brad Pit did on their trip to Africa. They most likely adopted a starving Ethiopian child but I don’t really care. I’m trying to live my life and don’t care what back up dancer Britney Spears is screwing or how often Lindsey Lohan is getting drunk at a club. If it’s important to me it would probably show up on the Breaking News cast of any TV station. Remember 9/11, not one channel didn’t say something about it. A lot of the times if something is important to though, many people will talk about it. Usually when something happens people love to discuss it and talk to each other about it. The radio a lot of times will also broadcast information regarding big news as well. Most of the time though, I do find out my news because someone tells me about it. I had no idea about the little boy who was missing after the balloon got away from his parents. I saw a news special about it but could only see the video. I only saw people chasing down a giant silver balloon and seriously thought that it was a space ship hoax that was caught early or something. I guess what I’ve been trying to say is that I really don’t care what’s going on unless it affects me in some way. The news a lot of time is distorted by the media, and because of that I don’t really pay any attention to it unless it’s important enough for everyone to know of it.

Here is my edited essay:

Kramer, Anthony
ENGL 105
Eric Leake
October 3, 2009
The internet is shaping our lives from all directions. We use it to manage our checkbooks, read about local news, play games, and to socialize with each other. Our lives are beginning to become centered on the web. We go to it for entertainment and work. We rely on it for communication. However, the more we use the internet the more it changes us and our way of thinking. As we use the internet more and more as a way to collect and transfer information, the reading and writing styles of most of us are changing so that the information we collect and share is no longer in depth and only scratches the surface of a topic as seen in the length of the articles we read and write.
Let’s focus on our reading styles as we surf the web. Who reads more than the first part of an article? Who reads the whole thing? Not to many of us will. The reason is because we can’t stay focused on something for that long. We just want to see the jest of whatever we are reading. We no longer read for entertainment, yet we read so that we can collect as much information as possible. We are literate but illiterate at the same time. We can read the text word for word and gain the literal meaning that it poses on us, however, usually there is a hidden message, whether subliminal or textually, that we cannot comprehend. We cannot comprehend the message not only cause we don’t read the whole article sometimes, but also the fact that we are not capable to do so because we are somewhat illiterate. As Hedge’s article stated, most people read at a fourth grade level. The ability to understand in text meanings really isn’t developed until well into high school. One of the main reasons for our lack of ability to read at a higher level is because of what we do read. Most news articles and pieces in the news papers are written at a fourth grade level. This includes most of anything we read on the internet. Most well known writers writing blogs and articles that are well known will write at this level too. The reason is, and I’m stating this from my opinion and logic, because they are appealing to an everyday audience. They want to be able to appeal to the most people possible, and if they write in a very complex manner, not too many ordinary people will be able to understand it and won’t read it. Writing is a game of appeals. You need to focus on your ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos establish the writer’s credibility, logos, the subject’s credibility and your pathos appeal to the audience. The good writers establish pathos by writing at a simpler level. They appeal to their audience because the audience doesn’t have to think as much. The audience doesn’t have to deal with complex thought. Now they probably much rather be watching TV or something than reading. I think we mostly love to read on the internet because we get the choice of what we are going to read. I know that throughout my schooling career so far I have hated to read. I really have. Now I’m not going to say I completely hate reading but I think the biggest thing is when I’m forced to do it. I have read plenty of books throughout my career, most I have not liked. There have been a few that I have enjoyed, but truly these books consisted of simple diction and a great plot line. When I had to read something that was more complex and had a great plot, but a lot of the meaning in the plot was hidden, I didn’t like the book. Now most people that do read on the internet obviously choose what they read, however they don’t go and read Charles Dickens or Shakespeare. They read simple blogs that everyday people have written. They read what their friend wrote as their status on face book. They read very simple articles that consist of simple diction choices so they don’t have to work to read. Our reading habits really haven’t changed much in my eyes though. Instead of reading the newspaper for enjoyment, most rather sit down in front of their computer and read the paper online. As Americans, we haven’t been known for being the most intelligent people in the world but rather for our ability to do hard work. We work hard. There is no doubt about it, but we do a lot of physical labor and never work our minds too hard. And we don’t like to work our minds because after years of intense schooling being forced to work for what seems like no reward, we will give up on it. This is exactly what we did for reading too. It’s easy to work at a job when every week or two a check shows up in your hands. Our reading habits on the internet emphasize our need as Americans for a reward for the work we do, and our desire to do as little as possible to get this reward. Just like we read simple and minimal articles on the internet so that we can get as much information as possible without doing a lot of work, we write in a similar fashion.
Now me personally, I rather write than read. Now I don’t know if it’s because I like to express my ideas or just that fact I like to argue sometimes. I like controversy and argumentation. When I wrote in high school my teacher always would yell at me because any paper I would write I would turn into a qualifying piece. This doesn’t sound like the point I made earlier about doing little work for the most gain. I have to ask this though, what was your favorite subject in school and how well did you do in it? I bet any subject needs work, however when it was a favorite, you didn’t feel like it was a job or was work. It came easier to you. So I wrote everything as a qualifying piece because it was easier to me and I didn’t feel like I was working as hard to complete the piece. This essay I’m writing now is very difficult to me, I have worked hard on it but have not put an excellent piece together. Most of the sentences in this piece alone are simple, along with the diction. I write at a very simple level, the same most people would. This is also because my almost hatred for academic reading. My knowledge base hasn’t been developed to the point where I can write a great paper, but I can function. I am literate but as stated in the piece, “Equity and Literacy in the Next Millennium,” building upon a student’s knowledge base facilitates their learning which leads to higher rate of literacy. Basically, the more they know the better they will do. Because I hated reading, my vocabulary never flourished. I know I’m talking about my writing a lot and I’m sorry to do that, but the reason I am doing that is because I feel my writing represents most of America’s. It’s full of very simple wording and sentencing. We as a nation of writers do this all the time. I don’t care who is writing. It could be a great writer or just any old person off the street. The writing is going to be very simple. It’s so most everybody can understand it. The writing most of the time will also be, as I like to put it, short and to the point. My big philosophy when writing is to say what I need to, back up my opinion, and then end the piece. Writing on the internet is short and to the point because nobody wants to read six pages of repetition and flowery words. We as writers recognize that our audience doesn’t want a novel when they read a piece. As Andrea Lunsford states in Clive Thompson’s piece, we write for our audience. Our writing has adapted to our audience and what they want to read. Our writing style has changed a lot because our audience is now everyday people on the internet. Even though our reading habits haven’t changed as we surf the World Wide Web, our writing has because of our new audience and our ability to display our work to them.
Most of all, the internet has changed how we write. We can post articles of writing on the internet and allow the world to see them. We write to an audience that doesn’t want to read an exponential amount of material in order to gain a little information. As readers, we have pushed this onto the writers. It’s a cause, effect thing. We have not changed as readers, however as the internet expands and we are able to read more and more pieces, the writers have adjusted their style so they can reach out to the broadest audience possible. The internet is changing our writing habits to fit the poor reading habits that we all have within us.
Au, Kathryn, and Taffy Raphael. "Equity and Literacy In the New Millennium." 35.1 (2009): 170-88. Print.
Hedges, Chris. "America the Illiterate." (2008): n. pag. Web. 3 Oct 2009. .
Thompson, Clive. "Clive Thompson on the new literacy." (2009): n. pag. Web. 3 Oct 2009. .

Here is my complete essay, sorry it's so late.

The internet is shaping our lives from all directions. We use it to manage our checkbooks, read about local news, play games, and to socialize with each other. Our lives are beginning to become centered on the web. We go to it for entertainment and work. We rely on it for communication. However, the more we use the internet the more it changes us and our way of thinking. As we use the internet more and more as a way to collect and transfer information, the reading and writing styles of most of us is changing so that the information we collect and share is no longer in depth and only scratches the surface of a topic as seen in the length of the articles we read and write such as blogs and news pieces.
Let’s focus on our reading styles as we surf the web. Who reads more than the first part of an article? Who reads the whole thing? Not to many of us will. The reason is because we can’t stay focused on something for that long. We just want to see the jest of whatever we are reading. We no longer read for entertainment, yet we read so that we can collect as much information as possible. We are literate but illiterate at the same time. We can read the text word for word and gain the literal meaning that it poses on us, however, usually there is a hidden message, whether subliminal or textually, that we cannot comprehend. We cannot comprehend the message not only cause we don’t read the whole article sometimes, but also the fact that we are not capable to do so because we are somewhat illiterate. As Hedge’s article stated, most people read at a fourth grade level. The ability to understand in text meanings really isn’t developed until well into high school. One of the main reasons for our lack of ability to read at a higher level is because of what we do read. Most news articles and pieces in the news papers are written at a fourth grade level. This includes most of anything we read on the internet. Most well known writers writing blogs and articles that are well known will write at this level too. The reason is, and I’m stating this from my opinion and logic, because they are appealing to an everyday audience. They want to be able to appeal to the most people possible, and if they write in a very complex manner, not too many ordinary people will be able to understand it and won’t read it. Writing is a game of appeals. You need to focus on your ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos establish the writer’s credibility, logos the subject’s credibility and your pathos appeal to the audience. The good writers establish pathos by writing at a simpler level. They appeal to their audience because the audience doesn’t have to think as much. The audience doesn’t have to deal with complex thought. Now they probably much rather be watching TV or something than reading. I think we mostly love to read on the internet because we get the choice of what we are going to read. I know that throughout my schooling career so far I have hated to read. I really have. Now I’m not going to say I completely hate reading but I think the biggest thing is when I’m forced to do it. I have read plenty of books throughout my career, most I have not liked. There have been a few that I have enjoyed, but truly these books consisted of simple diction and a great plot line. When I had to read something that was more complex and had a great plot but a lot of the meaning in the plot was hidden, I didn’t like the book. Now most people that do read on the internet obviously choose what they read, however they don’t go and read Charles Dickens or Shakespeare. They got read simple blogs that everyday people have written. They read what their friend went and wrote as their status on face book. They read very simple articles that consist of simple diction choices so that they don’t have to work to read. Our reading habits really haven’t changed that much in my eyes though. Instead of reading the newspaper for enjoyment, most rather sit down in front of their computer and read the paper online. As Americans, we haven’t been known for being the most intelligent people in the world but rather for our ability to do hard work. We work hard. There is no doubt about it, but we do a lot of physical labor and never work our minds to hard. And we don’t like to work our minds because after years of intense schooling being forced to work for what seems like no reward, we will give up on it. This is exactly what we did for reading too. It’s easy to work at a job when every week or two a check shows up in your hands. Our reading habits on the internet emphasize our need as Americans for a reward for the work we do, and our desire to do as little as possible to get this reward. Just like we read simple and minimal articles on the internet so that we can get as much information as possible without doing a lot of work, we write in a similar fashion.
Now me personally, I rather write than read. Now I don’t know if it’s because I like to express my ideas or just that fact I like to argue sometimes. I like controversy and argumentation. When I wrote in High School my teacher always would yell at me because any paper I would write I would turn into a qualifying piece. Now this doesn’t sound like the point I made earlier about doing little work for the most gain. I have to ask this though, what was your favorite subject in school and how well did you do in it? I bet any subject needs work, however when it was a favorite, you didn’t feel like it was a job or was work. It came easier to you. So I wrote everything as a qualifying piece because it was easier to me and I didn’t feel like I was working as hard to complete the piece. Now this essay I’m writing now is very difficult to me, I have worked hard on it but have not put an excellent piece together. Most of the sentences in this piece alone are simple, along with the diction. I write at a very simple level, the same most people would. This is also because my almost hatred for academic reading. My knowledge base hasn’t been developed to the point where I can write a great paper but I can function. I am literate but as stated in the piece “Equity and Literacy in the Next Millennium” building upon a student’s knowledge base facilitates their learning which leads to higher rate of literacy. Basically, the more they know the better they will do. Because I hated reading, my vocabulary never flourished. I know I’m talking about my writing a lot and I’m sorry to do that but the reason I am doing that is because I feel that my writing represents most of America’s. It’s full of very simple wording and sentencing. We as a nation of writers do this all the time. I don’t care who is writing. It could be a great writer or just any old person off the street. The writing is going to be very simple. It’s so that most everybody can understand it. The writing most of the time will also be, as I like to put it, short and to the point. My big philosophy when writing is to say what I need to, back up my opinion, and then end the piece. Writing on the internet is short and to the point because nobody wants to read six pages of repetition and flowery words. We as writers recognize that our audience doesn’t want a novel when they read a piece. As Andrea Lunsford states in Clive Thompson’s piece, we write for our audience. Our writing has adapted to our audience and what they want to read. Our writing style has changed a lot because of our audience is now everyday people on the internet. Even though our reading habits haven’t changed as we surf the World Wide Web, our writing has because of our new audience and our ability to display our work to them.
Most of all, the internet has changed how we write. We can post articles of writing on the internet and allow the world to see them. We write to an audience that doesn’t want to read an exponential amount of material in order to gain a little information. As readers, we have pushed this onto the writers. It’s a cause, effect thing. We have not changed as readers, however as the internet expands and we are able to read more and more pieces, the writers have adjusted their style so that they can reach out to the broadest audience possible. The internet is changing our writing habits to fit the poor reading habits that we all have within us.

This IS my essay so far. It's the first paragraph and part of the second. I know it's short for now but I'm having a hard time writing it. Just let me know what you think of it so far. I will post more when I get more.

The internet is shaping our lives from all directions. We use it to manage our checkbooks, read about local news, play games, and to socialize with each other. Our lives are beginning to become centered on the web. We go to it for entertainment and work. We rely on it for communication. However, the more we use the internet the more it changes us and our way of thinking. As we use the internet more and more as a way to collect and transfer information, the reading and writing styles of most of us is changing so that the information we collect and share is no longer in depth and only scratches the surface of a topic as seen in the length of the articles we read and write such as blogs and news pieces.
Let’s focus on our reading styles as we surf the web. Who reads more than the first part of an article? Who reads the whole thing? Not to many of us will. The reason is because we can’t stay focused on something for that long. We just want to see the jest of whatever we are reading. We no longer read for entertainment, yet we read so that we can collect as much information as possible. We are literate but illiterate at the same time. We can read the text word for word and gain the literal meaning that it poses on us, however, usually there is a hidden message, whether subliminal or textually, that we cannot comprehend. We cannot comprehend the message not only cause we don’t read the whole article sometimes, but also the fact that we are not capable to do so because we are somewhat illiterate.

literacy article

Here is an article on literacy.
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B__TpEuX1DNCY2Q0MmNiMmQtNTA3ZC00YTQ1LThkMTgtYmNiNDZlYmVhNDYy&hl=en

The reason it’s a bad day for news rooms isn’t because of the illiterate America that Hedge so solemnly swore existed. And truthfully I believe there is a big separation in the literacy of Americans as Hedge did describe. The bad news for news rooms is in the fact that people are skimming the surface of knowledge as Carr described in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” People are no longer reading for in depth analysis on recent news topics in order to understand the ways that other nations and cultures think, but rather look at the minimum knowledge of a topic just to see what major occurrences are affecting the world. In relation to Clive Thompson’s article on the new literacy, the new literacy isn’t about reading, rather about writing and who to. The new generation that is being spoiled by social networking and texting is setting up a new time where the main purpose of writing is speaking to an audience. They can develop tone and ethos to appeal to any audience depending on the views of the personnel. Truly I don’t see any relation between the two articles. Carr and Hedge’s articles are more closely related because they talk about reading and writing. Thompson’s article strictly focuses on the writing skills of the new generation and its ability to adapt. This new generation unlike the past generations will continue to write structured paragraphs and sentences in order to communicate with each other. The writings may be simple short hands or be structured like old writings, but they will be there and will be representing the new language that this generation has created and its ingenuity.

Either Hedge is really angry with the American people or he is right. I don’t know if enough people are paying attention to him but we should all read his article “America the Illiterate.” Let’s face it we as a population are just about retarded. There are people out there that can’t do simple math to balance their checkbook, with a calculator I might add. I’ve seen it! There are also people that at a grocery store try to use a coupon on the wrong bottle of detergent. They’re excuse is that it looks like the one in the picture. That may be true but there is always a size or special scent that people can’t see in the picture. I worked as a cashier for a small chain of grocery stores in my home area and I can’t tell you how dumb the average population is. This grocery store that I worked in wasn’t in the best neighborhood, but I’m not saying these people were the scum of the earth either. These people were average middle class Americans. They all probably had a TV in their family room and a car in their garage. As Hedge defined the illiterates, these people probably couldn’t understand a loan contract from their bank but surely enough voted for Obama because they fell for simple mind games in his campaign. These illiterates are the mindless zombies that do the same thing every day following the time constraints put on themselves because they want to watch CSI at 9:00. I’m not the best reader in the world and admit that some things in hedge’s article I didn’t understand. This includes many of the complex words. However, I do have the mental capacity to understand what he was saying by trying to understand the words using in text clues, and thus I was able to read the article and find his message in it. Unlike Carr who thinks we as a people are being made stupid by Google, Hedge turns and says that we are stupid because we are entertained at a middle school level and choose not to challenge our minds so that we think at a higher level. We prefer pictures because it’s easier to understand the picture than read the words under it. Next thing we know we’ll be ordering our food from pop-up menus, far out dude.

Ya'll lazy

“Is Google making us stupid?” NO. Google isn’t making us stupid but is rather rewiring out thinking process. Our brains are no longer absorbing material in a form that contains an in depth knowledge of a particular subject but rather are absorbing only pieces of multiple subjects. As seen by the a study of the internet sites the class visited we skip from site to site in search of little bits of information that is contained on multiple websites. We may search the internet for information pertaining to our homework assignments, our leisure, our social networking, or for news and media. Stupid we is not as a class though. We think different than how people may have thought years ago. Our minds travel from place to place with our browsing and we absorb information. However when it comes time to restate what we have read and learned, we can do it. We have no problem. Our minds do think differently but I don’t think it makes us stupid. Thinking differently isn’t really what we do either. I don’t think we think at all. Our brain wants to be entertained and at the same time expel the least amount of effort to do so. How many people rather watch CSI on Thursday nights than open a book or magazine and read it. As an example of just how lazy we have gotten, turn and look at the T.V. and how we watch it and how we know what’s on it. To see what was on T.V. we used to have to read the TV Guide. Now we have a tivo or DVR that displays what’s on the T.V. on the T.V. Less effort for more knowledge describes our thinking process now. It’s not really a process but is an example of technology making us lazy.

Let’s face it; Harris is describing a completely different form of writing than what Sullivan had described. Harris is talking about rewriting, or other words the act of “striv[ing] to represent the work of another, to translate the language and ideas of a text into words of your own, coming to terms.” Harris is a man writing formal, nonfictional papers focused ideas that have been developed over time. The writing is set out to use the ideas of others in your own paper to strengthen your own ideas without plagiarizing the ideas of others. The biggest thing to do is to read the ideas and works of others and translate them. To understand them. Reading is understanding a text that we need. “Texts don’t simply reveal their meanings to us; we need to make sense of the texts we encounter.” The combination of reading texts and ideas to understand them gives us a greater ability to use them in our own writing. We may just simply be reusing a text in our own writing, but we interpret it differently and thus may present our meaning of the text. Multiple people could see it different ways and thus have different opinions of it. Now, to compare the ideas of writing between Sullivan and Harris, I can’t. Sullivan is an on the spot writer that portrays his immediate ideas onto the paper. He doesn’t need the ideas of others to strengthen his own or to develop any. Harris uses the ideas of others to build his writing into what it is. Without the ideas of others, he has no paper. There is no comparison between the two ideas of writing other than the fact that they put their ideas onto paper. They develop their ideas differently, but do it different ways in order to develop to different types of writings. I don’t find if fair to compare the two author’s ideas of writing because they do describe the writing processes of two different forms of texts.

The internet

Reading the habits of my other classmates as they spend their time on-line, I found that I didn’t put nearly as much effort into what I do on the internet as they did. However, I don’t do nearly as much on the internet. I get on the internet for mainly two things I noticed. E-mail and shopping. I need e-mail for school and am told to check in everyday so that I don’t miss anything. I really don’t like doing that but it’s not that big of a hassle so I don’t care. Now when I say shopping I mean for man stuff. Sorry ladies no clothes. I’ve been looking for motorcycles on line. I’ve been riding my dad’s ancient BMW R90S. It’s a 76’ that’s in really good shape but I’d prefer to have my own so I could ride with him and take it to school. I need a vehicle with good gas mileage to get home on weekends. So I’ve been a smart shopper and have been comparing prices using Kelly blue book and checking insurance rates on progressive cause they are the only people that will give me (18years old) an online quote without talking to someone. Unlike most of my classmates who are on the social networks a lot, I check in and leave the site most the time. It’s not really my thing and never got one until my girlfriend made me get one before I left for college so she could keep in touch. (I’m texting her as I write this.) Granted I wasn’t on the internet to much this weekend cause it was Labor Day and I was hunting, but still. I’m not on too much. I get on pogo.com occasionally for games and check sports on sites but I really am not on the internet unless I need to find out a piece on information. My social networking is through texting and actual interaction. I find out my news via the tube. The internet is awesome, but I don’t depend on it.

Sunday
gwwebic.louiville.edu
Ulink
craigslist.org
Monday
Facebook
Blackboard
Craigs list
Facebook
gwwebic.louisville.edu
Kbb.com
live.xbox.com
louisville.edu
ulink
progressive
xbox.com
youtube.com

“Their lack of finish is what makes them so compelling.” Why does he blog? This is exactly why in my eyes. He loves to write but without the time or the need to read, read, and proofread a piece he has the challenge of putting together a good piece without the crutches. It is a challenge. Just like the dare devil going for the next great stunt or athlete going for a record. He states in his article that the deadlines for his blogs were in the now. This is just another challenge that he has to overcome as he writes his posts. Most everyone faces deadlines as they write a paper or novel but when the topic of what you are writing about is changing as you write, the challenge increases. Andrew Sullivan is an adrenaline junky and just doesn’t put his life on the line. He puts himself out there for the world to see so that the world can see how good of a writer he is. He reaches out to everyone in order to please them as his ultimate editors. When he does reach a conflict with one of his editors per say, it provides another opportunity for him to express himself. Blogs are in real time and show different events in time. One person may dislike his blog but with the living and changing writing that is the blog he has the chance for discussion. Why blog? Blog because it is a challenge everyday for every word over any topic. It expresses ideas and gives every writer new or wise a challenge every time he or she posts.

I’d have to say, I was a little nervous when it came to writing a blog. I’ve never written a blog and had no idea what to write about. Where was I going to post the blog? Luckily for me the teacher told us where we could post our blog. Google offers the ability to create your own blog and surprisingly it was very easy. All that was needed was an e-mail address and the creation of your own password. Google also allows you to create your own names and internet address. Now creating the blog was not nearly as difficult as writing it currently. I do have a prompt on what to write about but at the same time the prompt does not promote much to write about. Now I believe this blog would be so much easier for me to write if I had a stronger topic for me to write about. I prefer writing on more controversial issues such as gun control and politics. Now I’m pro-gun and strongly believe in them so I could argue all day for them. Don’t bring it up or I’ll never shut up. Now as for comparing this blog to facebook, I’d have to say creating my facebook account was much more difficult just because it requires a lot more information to create your profile and page. On the other hand though, facebook does not require as much writing as this blog. Writing in facebook is more of a communication process between friends so what to say comes a lot easier. To wrap this up I’m going to hope that the next posts are easier to write and more enjoyable to read.