Journal #1: Language Matters Question 3
After reading David Foster Wallace’s essay ‘Consider the Lobster,’ there are multiple questions that appeared to me. I first agreed with Wallace’s overall question; is the act of boiling lobsters alive appropriate? I began to question if our practices at home with lobster were okay as well. The most important question that I would want to ask Wallace during a discussion would be if there is actual scientific proof of whether lobsters feel pain. Although it would be easy to just conclude if it is appropriate to continue with this practice, I feel like it’s the best way for someone to conclude how they feel about this controversy. Another question I would want to ask him is why there is a big controversy about the acts of cooking lobster when there are similar practices happening with multiple other animals. Lots of people are okay with eating bacon, or hamburgers when a similar action was taken on these animals. When it comes to written discourse it’s hard for the writer to get their point across to all audiences. A writer doesn’t know how an audience may interpret his/her point of view of a debate. Coming from the reader’s side, it’s hard to ask questions as they read through the essay. Some topics may be hard for them to understand and when there isn’t a discussion face to face, and you aren’t seeing a reaction from someone. When writing, to anticipate my audience I will use similar strategies to the ones that Wallace did. I will first start off by explaining background just like Wallace did. This will get the reader interested in the debate and so they can start to formulate their own opinion. I will explain the pros and cons so that the reader can see both sides. Lastly, I will ask questions in the essay so the reader can ponder on this too.
Journal #2: In detail, describe your experiences drafting writing projects. And what about revision? What did that look like? What was your process? How did it work for you?
When it comes to writing projects, I tend to struggle a lot with them. It’s not writing about the content that’s hard for me, it’s figuring out how I want to put my thoughts into words. The second most difficult part for me is, starting to write out my essay. I start off by forming my thesis. After that, I compose a plan for each body paragraph. I write out an outline with what each paragraph will contain and how it will support my thesis. Once I’m done formulating a plan, I will begin to write my essay. This is where I begin to struggle but having an outline makes it just a little bit easier. I often times stress too much about each thing I write down, which takes me an excessive amount of time to write the essay. I make sure to include transition sentences in addition to topic sentences. When it’s time for me to revise, I like to get multiple peer edits on my work. I usually have a friend, teacher, or classmate read through my writing and mark it up. I like them to look to see if I’m addressing the essay correctly and to make sure I have the correct content. I also have them look for grammatical errors and spelling errors. Once they are done editing my work, I go through and fix the mistakes. Another one of my methods is that I set aside my writing for a day or two. I will then go back and read through it again later on so that it will be “new” to me. Doing this helps my mind remain fresh and I know that I have stepped back from my work. On that same day, I go back through the essay myself and reword sentences to make them stronger. I’ve found this process works really well for me. It helps me develop a well thought out essay and receive good feedback from a peer. It breaks up the process so that I’m not doing it all in one sitting, and it helps me stay on a schedule and not get stressed out about the project.
Journal #3: “The Art of Quoting” Response
When it comes to quoting authors in my own writing, I realized I’m not the best at it after reading “The Art of Quoting”. I was never actually taught how to correctly quote an author besides just adding on quotation marks, in-text citations, and a works cited page. I was always just told that adding quotes to your work, made your point more valid and stronger. By reading “The Art of Quoting” I was able to take a few lessons from it. The first thing that I realized I was doing wrong is that I assumed quotations spoke for themselves. Thinking back at some of the essays I have written, I have left my readers wondering the meaning of the quote. I feel like often times I forget to write everything that I am thinking and that the reader knows my exact intent for the quote. One thing that I found helpful was the “Quote Relevant Passages” paragraph. This point made me realize that after doing a lot of editing and revising, the quote used may not be relevant anymore in the paragraph, which never occurred to me. Another helpful point was clarifying how to frame quotations. Like I said before, I was never guided on how to incorporate quotes into my writing, so this section was also very helpful. I have to admit, that I am a “hit and run” writer when it comes to quotes. The way they describe this as a sandwich by introducing the quote and then explaining the quote after, helped it make more sense. This section will also be a good reference to look back on when I’m writing because they include good samples on how to introduce quotes.
Journal #4: Response to “End of Food” text
In Lizzie Widdicombe’s essay, “The End of Food” she describes a new type of “meal replacement,” or what could be considered as “an overall good substitute.” She begins the essay introducing Rob Rhinehart and explaining the problem he had with the cost of food being too high and not providing all of his nutritional needs. Rob Rhinehart was an entrepreneur who was a part of an inexpensive cell phone tower startup project. He took this problem upon himself and treated it as an engineering problem. His outcome was a product of thirty-five nutritional ingredients needed for survival. He called this product Soylent. Widdicombe travels to Rhinehart’s headquarters in Los Angeles to be given a tour. The headquarters were partly for making Soylent and partly for living. During the tour, Rhinehart offers Widdicombe to try the product. She tries the product and comes to realize that the few little sips she had, made her feel very full. After the tour, Rhinehart takes Widdecombe to meet his friend Ethan Brown who owns a food truck that “uses the protein found in peas and soy to make chick and beef substitutes.” The converse back in forth about how the “main challenge with food tech is culture.” They talk about how it’s so hard to get people to try/change types of modified foods when they have been eating this way for years. In the car, Widdicombe was worried about a flaw in his company by posting the recipe of Soylent online. The two discussed this and Rhinehart explained that D.I.Y.ers who recreate this product are a big advocate for the business. The last place that the two stopped at was at a dorm of engineering students who make Soylent themselves because they don’t have enough time to eat when it comes to studying.
After reading Widdecombe’s text I was intrigued by the type of lifestyle that Rhinehart lives. I know that living on a college campus and being a college student can hard to manage when to eat. Going to eat in the dining hall can take up to an hour of my time when I should be studying that hour. I feel like personally, I would try Soylent, but I wouldn’t want to use it for all three meals. I would drink it for breakfast and possibly lunch when it can be hard to fit in a meal. It would be helpful to have during the days that I am busying studying as well. One thing that would be hard for me is to get past the bad taste and the texture of it. I like food too much to replace it with something that would be less appetizing just to fill myself when I’m being lazy. I also had questions about the nutritional value of this product. Does it really provide all your needs, and would it truly be healthy for an active college student? Essentially, it’s just like putting chemicals into your body, and there is nothing really natural about this product.
Journal #5: Response to Entering the Conversation
By reading “Entering the Conversation” I learned a few skills on how to state my ideas in response to someone else’s. The first skill that I learned from this reading was in the “Why are you telling me this?” section. In this section, they teach you how to correctly state your ideas without it seeming like you are telling the reader this information for no apparent reason. I believe that I am guilty of this, so this helped me learn correctly how to properly introduce the topic and then explain my reasoning behind it. This will also help make a greater impact on my writing instead of just simply stating my point without any background information. I also found the cartoon that went along with the section to be very helping since I am more of a visual learner. Another thing I found helpful was all of the templates that were provided in this section. These templates will help make my points stronger and it will also help me set them up with a good structure to them. It will also help me get my point across in a less wordy way. Another skill that I learned was “stating my ideas as a response to others.” I thought this was an interesting way to respond to someone else’s work, but I think by using this skill it will become very effective in my writing. One section that I thought was really interesting was the “Disagreeing without being disagreeable.” I had never heard of this technique but I think by using this, it can make your point seem a lot more valid, and less controversial.
Journal #6: Feedback Letter and Marginal Comments
*See Peer Review Page for the Feedback letter and marginal comments on 2 of the essays that I edited: https://jmeyer51.uneportfolio.org/peer-review/
Journal #7: Reflecting on Peer Review (with Podcast)
The global comments and suggestions that I thought were the most helpful in editing in my essay would be the ones that targeted my thesis, my transition sentences/topic sentences. The comments on my thesis focused on elaborating more and adding in the topics that I focused on in each paragraph. My thesis was very vague at first, so once I added each topic I addressed, it made my thesis a lot stronger. I think the best advice I gave my peers was introducing Rhinehart earlier in their essay. By doing this it helps the reader follow along with their essay early on and strengthens their point. Another piece of advice I gave one of my peers was to restructure their paragraphs. By doing this it will help the reader follow their essay better and their topics will flow better. Important points that came up in our discussion that wasn’t on paper would be MLA format. We talked about in-text citations and the works cited page. On my paper, I did not have intext citations included and my peer told me it would be important to include this in. On one of my other peers’ essays, we talked about transition and topic sentences that we did not include on paper. This was important to their essay because it would make the essay seem less choppy. One thing that I wished we talked about in my essay was if I was addressing the prompt correctly and had good supporting ideas. I felt like I repeated myself in a few of my paragraphs and after reading my own essay a bunch of times my ideas started to blend together in my head. By having another set of eyes on my paper looking for this would have been very helpful.
Podcast on Journal #7
Journal #8: Response to “They Say- Starting with What Others Are Saying”
After reading “They Say- Starting with What Others Are Saying” I found that the first most important advice they give us is to introduce what “they say” early in your writing. I was confused about what they meant by “they say” but it’s simply just how others feel about the topic you are addressing. They say to keep your thoughts and the other thoughts close together in the text. I found the templates to be helpful and could use these at some point in my own writing. I thought it was interesting how you can use yourself as your “they say” and set yourself up to use your own views. Lastly, another helpful piece of advice from here is to keep referring back to “what they say” and using return sentences because the reader will forget and have a hard time following along. I believe that I don’t do this enough in my own writing and by doing this I think it will help strengthen my writing.
Journal #9: Reflection on Revision (In class)
In my essay, I spent the most time revising my transition and topic sentences. I wanted to make sure that I was transitioning into each paragraph correctly and that my first sentence indicated what I was going to be talking about in that paragraph. A second thing I focused on was taking out unnecessary details. There were a few places where I added something that just didn’t go well in that paragraph so I either deleted it completely it moved it someplace else. Drafting this time was a lot different to my drafting in the past. For the most part, I really didn’t change a lot from my first draft to my last. It was typically reading it over to make sure there weren’t any spelling or punctuation errors. This time though I did a lot more editing that I would usually do. I took the advice from my peers and applied it to my essay to make some pretty be changes to my work. Working on this project I think I did a really good job meeting the expectations for this class. I made sure I included all the important parts to an essay and used the advice from my peers. One thing that did happen at the beginning of this project was that I waited till last minute to get my first draft done and didn’t take quality time to work on it. For my second draft though I did take the time to get it done early and gave myself enough time to work on it. I think next time I want to try to edit my work even more than I did this time.
Journal #10: Responding to passages in “Out of the Kitchen, Onto the Couch”
Page 7, paragraph 2 “To cook from scratch, they decreed, means to prepare a main dish that requires some degree of ‘assembly of elements.”
Before this quote, it talks about how the definition of cooking is so meaningless. Nowadays assembling elements to cook could simply mean putting water and a seasoning packet into a bowl of noodles to make Ramen. Although I agree with this definition of cooking, I feel like society has manipulated this definition. I completely agree with how Pollan addresses this issue. I completely agree that we are no longer cooking just because we are lazy and that we should put in more effort into cooking real meals. By actually cooking a meal you are eating healthier and getting the social aspect from this. You interact with your family when cooking the meal, but also eating it with your family. It doesn’t just have to be sitting all together at the dinner table but by serving it to your family you get appreciation from them. I know I really appreciate when my mother puts together a cooked meal from scratch. She put in a lot of work to prepare the meal just so that I and the rest of my family can enjoy it. Pollan also mentions this point later on in his essay. Overall, I feel as if someone in the family should put in more effort than what they are already doing to cook and should stop manipulating this definition. Later on in time if Americans still continue to manipulate this definition, I believe that it should be changed to something more “complicated” that indicates more effort was put into cooking.
Page 4, paragraph 4 “ she explained that ‘for so many of us she took the fear out of cooking”
Although I have never seen Julia’s show I can see how she encouraged women to just ‘go for it’ in the kitchen. I know from personal experience that cooking has such a stigma around it. People are always so concerned with how their food taste’s or looks. Yes, food is always better when it tastes really good, but at least there was more effort put into it than just buying something premade from the store. It’s like making cookies. Everyone is always so concerned with how their cookies are going to taste. By reading more of Polllan’s story about how Julia took the fear out of cooking I can see how she encouraged women to just do whatever in the kitchen. I think this is much needed in today’s society with people not cooking as much. I think there is fear of how the food is going to taste and the presentation of it and people are going to avoid it all together.
Page 16, paragraph 3 “Maybe the reason we like to watch cooking on tv is that there are things about cooking we miss.”
I had a lot of trouble sympathizing with this quote and people who feel this way. Personally, I like to watch the cooking shows because I think they are entertaining to watch, not because I miss cooking. If someone is watching a cooking show because they miss cooking, then they should just go cook. I think that people don’t cook because they are lazy, not because they miss cooking. But another problem that I have with this quote is that if they have time to sit down and watch a cooking show for an hour, then they should have time to cook a meal for an hour. You would think that watching the cooking show would motive the viewer to want to cook but instead they probably just continue to watch the show. Pollan continues to say that people might now have the time and energy to cook, but if someone has an emotional connection to cooking, then this could be some sort of stress reliever and relaxer for them in their busy lives.
Journal #11: Responding to They Say/I Say Chapter 14
After reading “What’s Motivating This Writer?” I found a couple of things that were helpful. This chapter made me understand some of the methods that writers use when they are explaining what others are saying and what they are trying to say. By being aware of these methods it will help me engage with the text better by “reading for conversation” and also figuring out what “they say” about the text. I liked how they explain how to correctly “read for conversation” and how you should figure out what the writer is responding to and then you are able to figure out what the author is saying. This was really hard for me to understand at first when they introduced this idea but as I continued to read the rest of the chapter I began to understand it a lot better. The examples they provided were very useful to me and it helped give me a good visual of what they were talking about. It was also helpful for them to explain how the author might not come straight out and state their point. Another helpful tool they provided would be if you are reading a difficult text to take a minute and transform what the writer is saying into words that you can better understand. I think it’s important that they pointed this out and how you shouldn’t try to manipulate what the writer is saying to try to fit your own understanding. In contrast, you should adjust your understanding of what the writer is saying.
Journal #12: Identify 3-4 passages from the essay and help explain why they are significant to Herzog’s argument
Page 1, paragraph 4: “But now she faced….a ratio of three to one.”
In this passage it talks about how Judith has faced a difficult decision. She is unable to decide whether or not she wants to be a vegetarian and she is also having a hard deciding what she considers an animal. I think this is why she is having a hard time deciding what she wants to do, eat the chicken or not, because she has already partially “broken the rules” of being a vegetarian by eating fish. I think it’s important for a vegetarian to be all in or not at all because they can get confused morally. I think they need to weight out the benefits and consequences of eating animals for themselves and for Judith it caused disagreement in their relationship. Although it didn’t cost them their relationship it is still confusing for others looking a Judith eat fish and not a chicken. This goes along with Herzog’s argument because it shows that there is a complicated relationship between animals and people because like Judith, people have a hard time deciding how it’s okay to treat some animals like they are animals, and others like they aren’t.
Page 5, Paragraph 4: “His experimental protocol….into thin sections for microscopic analysis.”
As I said before, people have a hard time deciding how to treat animals. This passage talks about the process a man took to do an animal study. Comparing this passage to the first one, it shows the two extremes people talk with treating animals. People will go as far as not eating animals completely because they think it’s wrong to not treat animals like people, but then they use animals for testing in a really cruel way. There is two extremes and no definite line between these two extremes and I think it is really difficult for people to decide on how they want to treat animals. Some people treat animals as house pets, but then some animals are considered to be dangerous.
Page 3, Paragraph 6: “But then I started thinking…. 42 wriggling newborns.”
Going off my last response, people treat animals like house pets and then some people consider animals to be dangerous. Once again, there is no line between what is considered to be a house pet and what is considered to be a dangerous pet. This person who owned the snake as a pet was considered to be out of the ordinary because she was housing a “dangerous pet.” All animals could be considered dangerous because they are supposed to live in the wild, but then why is it that cats and dogs are okay to live in peoples house? Or, why is it that one type of bird is acceptable to be a house pet, but another type of bird isn’t. There is no fine line that defines all of these things, and it tends to confuse a lot of people on what is the right way to treat animals.
Journal #13: Reflection on Paper 2
I will admit, Paper Two was a lot harder for me to write than Paper One. My process for Paper Two went a lot better this time though. I gave myself more time to sit down and work, versus the last time I waited until the night before to finish what was due for the next day. I made sure I met with Professor Miller when I didn’t understand something, and when I wanted clarification to make sure I was on track with the prompt. One thing that I wish I did for this paper would be to make a more detailed and specific outline for what I was going to write for each paragraph. I had a few ideas I wrote down before I started to write, but my ideas shifted, and I should have created a new outline when this happened. It made my writing process a lot choppier and I had to do a lot more editing and moving my paragraphs around to make my essay flow better. In the end though, I think I had really good ideas and I supported my quotes really well. Although this is where I had trouble with this essay, I believe I did a good job.
Journal #14: Reconsidering The Lobster
After reading “Consider The Lobster” again, I still feel about the same as I did the first time I read this. I still question if there is actual scientific proof as to whether or not lobsters do feel pain when we cook them. I can still see how there is a controversy over the fact if this is okay or not, but after having a discussion with my family who eats lobsters, they informed me that there is a correct way to boil a lobster. If this is done correctly, and if lobsters do feel pain than they are likely to not feel pain. When it comes to the question of is it morally okay to eat them, I feel like I am more opinionated on this question. Yes, I do think it is okay to cook lobsters. They are animals and animals were created for us to eat them. After Reading “Animals Like Us” I did change my opinion on this and I think there needs to be a fine line between our relationships with animals. If there is a fine line than people are able to eat animals without feeling guilty and wondering if it went through any pain or lived a horrible life.
Journal #15: Response to “Against Meat” questions
Look at p. 3, the para. that begins with “Some of my happiest childhood memories…” Help explain what is lost by giving up meat and what is gained for Foer.
This is when Foer is talking about how food has more meaning to it than just the nutritional value that comes from eating it. He talks about how stories are associated with food, just like the story he explains to the reader about his grandmother cooking the best chicken and carrots. Foer also explains that his happiest childhood memories are about his mom’s sushi dates and his dad’s turkey burgers. All of these memories are associated with meat. When meat is taken out of the picture, then he loses the vivid memories that he encounters when he eats these foods. As soon as he gives up these foods, he is at a cultural loss and will need to find something else to associate these memories with. By raising his kids vegetarian, they won’t have any of their memories associated with meat. If they want to continue to be vegetarian they won’t lose their memories, and by picking up eating meat they will still have memories.
Review the 2 paras. on page 5 that begin with “While the cultural uses of meat can be replaced…”What do you make of the “question” Foer presents? How would you answer that? If you can’t answer the question, what does it suggest about your value system?
Foer presents the question; Why doesn’t a horny person have as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to confining, killing, and eating it? I believe the reason behind this is because raping an animal is not morally acceptable in our society whereas eating an animal is. Yes, they both have to do with pleasure, but eating is essential for our survival whereas raping is not. People were made to eat animals, not to rape them. As humans, we need to eat to survive, but we do not need to rape to survive. Needing to eat animals is more justifiable than raping is and because of this, it’s why killing and eating an animal is more acceptable in our society. Pleasure being the reason behind eating an animal can be a selfish thing, but someone isn’t going to force themselves to eat something they don’t like. Personally, if the option is out there for me to enjoy food and benefit from it nutritionally than why not. Again, we were made to eat animals, not rape them.
Journal #16: Responding to They Say I Say pages 78-91
After reading this section, I can see how important it may be to include the Naysayer point of view when writing about objections and arguments. I have always stayed away from doing this in my text because I was afraid that the reader would take the opposing side of the argument I was making, just like they mention Joe Jackson taking this risk in his text. After reading this section though, I found ways that I could work this into my text and be confident in the argument I am making. By mentioning the naysayer view of the argument, it helps by strengthening your side of the argument. It shows the reader that you aren’t completely ignoring the opposing side and that you may come across as close-minded. When mentioning these sides of the argument it’s important to address these people correctly. Lots of people are opposed to labels, so it’s important to name these people correctly without offending them. All of the templates they list can be of some use in my texts. They give me ways to introduce the views of naysayers correctly without offending the reader. Lastly, the most important piece I took from this would be if you introduce a counter view and its stronger than your point, it’s okay to go back and change your argument. I’ve struggled with this before in my writing, so if changing my argument in the end will help make my paper stronger, then I think it’s worth changing my paper.
Journal #18: Reflection of Paper 3 process and revision
This third essay was a lot more difficult for me to write. I went through a lot of drafts for this one and continuously rewrote my work. Peer review was helpful and one of the things that my group told me to work on was incorporating two texts into one paragraph. This advice seemed really good a first, but when it came time to actually try to do this, I couldn’t make it work. The way that my brain is structured is to use one paragraph for each text and I couldn’t find a way to do this without rewriting my whole essay for the third time. I tried to do this in a few places, but it made my text seem choppy and almost like I just like threw in a quote and then not explaining it well. I stuck to my original plan and decided to just wrap it all together in my conclusion. I took away a lot of unnecessary detail and added in quotes. I tried my best to explain how each piece indirectly talked about the troubled middle. I completely changed the thesis from my first essay to something that was more precise.
