Persuasive Reflection

Draft One

Reflecting back on all my writing assignments in this course I can confidently say I have very much improved. When it comes to the big two writing assignments that included feedback, drafting and revision I know by reading back to the first draft of each one and now reading my final drafts my writing has improved dramatically for the better.

The value of receiving feedback had very a positive impact on me. Receiving opinions from my peers and instructor from the outside looking in, I was accepting to listen and take their advice with open ears to be able to draft and revise their opinions into my writing and I found it very beneficial. “A strength:  your willingness to consider criticism to help you improve your writing” (Helen, 2016).

The main strategy I used was re-reading my writing over and over. I’d read it in my head to myself and I’d read it out loud to myself over and over to be able to listen to what words or sentences fit or didn’t fit. Reading out loud gave me an excellent source of evidence that my writing really flowed together compared to the beginning of this semester of my drafts to the final and to me it was a big difference in a good way. When comparing my first drafts to my final drafts I really realized I listened to myself when I told myself to try to use my voice more and make it louder within my writing because I felt even in the beginning of my writing journey in the course my voice wasn’t very strong. I received feedback from a peer saying, “Your sentence structures are very good and it’s very easy to hear your voice in your writing” (Katie, 2016). That truly felt good hearing my peer point that out because I set a goal for my voice to be heard and it was reached.

“If I could suggest separating the ideas into different paragraphs so each individual idea speaks louder and has definition” (Sasha, 2016). In the beginning I wasn’t familiar with writing layouts and how it was better to layout topics into different sets of paragraphs so that the writing would flow better and target each interest in it’s own paragraph. I was clueless that it was a major part of writing so having received that specific piece of advice from a peer really helped me notice that it’s important to give each individual idea it’s own paragraph. I took that piece of advice with me the whole way through my writing assignments and during the process of drafting and revising that was a major piece of advice that I think improved my writing.

It’s very difficult not to write in first person and that was something I’ve always struggled with when it came to writing. Looking at my drafts before revising I realized I was writing quite a bit in first person and not realizing it. I mainly realized in my profile writing and focused on revising it. “I suggest the revision to remove ‘you’ from the narrative” (Helen, 2016). That advice clicked in my mind and made me realize I need to take more time to revise. Reading back to my first draft of the profile assignment and now reading my final draft after taking the time to revise so that I wasn’t writing in first person was a huge difference.

I feel very proud and confident with how much I’ve improved in my writing and I will carry this knowledge gained from the drafting/feedback/revision with me to continue to benefit my writing abilities.

 

College Tuition

Think of all the many people who are extremely book smart but can’t afford college tuition. Think of all the many people who know in their heart what their passion is in life and wish to go to school so they can succeed and achieve their dreams but can’t afford it. Also, I want you to think of the one’s who are terrified to be drowning in debt up to their neck.

Those are examples of people who deserve a fair and fighting chance to reach their goals. An 80% average by the end of their high school years would give people the drive and passion to meet and maintain that average in order to receive a better future. It would change so many young minds for the better to truly take high school serious in order to get something life long worth out of it such as a career.

From experience, a majority of kids don’t take high school as serious as they should and they travel onto the wrong paths that won’t better their future sometimes. Knowing you have something so rewarding at the end of high school waiting for you such as a free tuition to college would lead to a better drive and a better educated population that could result in smarter-decision making at every level of society.

People are also depressed thinking about their future when it comes to worrying about scraping up enough money for their funds to attend college rather than focusing on school work. It could bring so much happiness to kids and their families. Happiness in people can result to a happier nation as a whole.

It would definitely be a very wise and beneficial thing to many lives if it were to come true.

The Debate

In a debate between a champion Harvard debating team and prison inmates, I personally think it would be a close call to who would win the debate between the two.

When you’re looking at it from the point of view of the prison inmates in the scenario given, there’s a high chance they could possibly win the debate when it comes down to a decision. My reasoning for that is yes, they’ve been put into jail for violent crimes but if they’re seeking an education, maybe being in jail has given them a wake up call to turn their lives around and therefore they wish to seek education. The outcome will be rewarding for them and if they were able to commit to bettering their lives, the world could be a better place.

On the other hand, when you’re looking at it from the champion Harvard debating team, they obviously have the knowledge, experience and schooling to back them up when it comes to winning a debate against three made up prisoners from a jail in New York. If you were to stand as an outsider looking in being asked to vote for who you think would win the debate between the two, I’m sure everyone’s gut instinct would to vote for the team with the most education supporting their side of the debate.

I think the three prisoners would be more likely to defend the rights of illegal immigrants because they would be trying to win the debate in order to get themselves and other illegal immigrants an education to better themselves.

The out come of debate given in the scenario would be a very interesting path to follow to see who would win the debate out of those two.

Persuasion

This week’s blog topic is based on persuasion so I’m going to begin by telling you about the most recent time I used the combination of both, persuading someone to think my way and to also do something I wanted to do. Recently, a three of my friends and I were hanging out one evening and decided to go out for dinner together to a restaurant. We each named off a couple of restaurants and voted to decide which one we would go to and the one that got the most votes was not one that I voted for. I’ve had bad experiences each time I’ve been to this specific restaurant when it comes to slow waitress service and menu orders being messed up and I told myself I would never go back! Also, I truly wanted to go to a restaurant that is always my go-to that is excellent and I had been craving it for a long while but no one else voted it in other than me. So that’s when I greedily opened my mouth to use persuasion to get my way.

The strategies I used in that situation to persuade my three friends were simply the use of words and past experience. My persuasion was successful because I made my friends believe and understand that the restaurant lacked good tasting food and provided very slow service.

For my persuasion to be successful I relied on logic and charm. I used logic from past experience to make my point believable and I used charm to make it believable. I believe charm is a main component to persuasion in multiple situations.

I’m not proud looking back on that situation knowing persuasion is an attempt to influence a persons view to be in line with what I think.

Secret # 2: Develop Your Objective Eye

Out of the three secrets provided for effective re-writing in the reading “True Writing is Re-writing” by Beth Shope, I feel the most important secret to me to follow during my own writing experience is secret # 2: Develop Your Objective Eye. Secret # 2 breaks it down into three very useful ways that can help develop clear vision in the eyes when it comes to re-writing. Read, practice and join a critique group. I believe it offers a very valuable lesson that would be helpful to not only myself but many others when it comes to writing and/or rewriting.

When writing a profile about someone or something during the interview process you need to have an eagle’s eye to pay close enough attention to actions, body language and more to be able to give your writing life. That’s why I think when it comes to reading or watching movies it helps gain knowledge to be able to develop real life situations then put them into writing and practice re-writing what you have down within your first couple of drafts so that your readers can see, believe and feel what you’re writing about.

Everybody needs practice in life for multiple things. It’s exciting when you learn to practice and play with your writing, switching it all around, adding things or taking things out for it to turn out to be a total masterpiece all said and done.

My favourite piece of secret # 2 is to join a critique group. It’s so helpful having someone look at your writing from the outside looking in. I think its very helpful having other’s give their opinion on your faults about your writing. It helps you to remold your writing, re-write and create something even better.

Show Dog

I’m going to focus my attention on the profile reading Show Dog by Susan Orlean. It’s obvious in the beginning of Show Dog as you begin to read and get into the first three paragraphs, you really start to pick up that the profile reading is about a dog named Biff Truesdale. Biff’s breed is a boxer and what peaks my interest most within this reading is knowing where boxers got their name from.

“Boxers were named for their habit of standing on their hind legs and punching with their front paws when they fight. They were originally bred to be chaperons — to look forbidding while being pleasant to spend time with. Except for show dogs like Biff, most boxers lead a life of relative leisure.” (Orlean, 1995)

References

Orlean, S. (1995, February 20 & 27). Show Dog. The New Yorker, p. 5.

I think this passage is successful as the vivid presentation of a fact about boxers. It tells the reader a lot about the type of breed and is very interesting to know why boxers got the names given to them that they did. I, myself in fact have a boxer named Remington and I chose that specific passage because if anyone’s ever curious about the breed, that states some facts well. Boxers have such a funny personality but its funny they were bred to come off as forbidding! Visually yes, they do look a little forbidding but they are the sweetest souls. I do giggle a little though thinking about a boxer being a show dog, I think it would be more humorous and fitting to put a boxer in a boxing ring rather than being a stand around show dog with their front paw boxing skills.

Not Afraid To Interrupt

The piece of advice that Brian Casel gave in “What The Best Interviewers Get Right” that stuck out to me most was to not be afraid to interrupt. I believe not being afraid to interrupt will be what I mainly struggle with during the interview process. Casel mentioned this is a struggle for him as well as he’s trying to become a better interviewer.

Interrupting comes off as very rude when engaged in any conversation. The way I was brought up by my parents, the right thing to do would always be to truly give your full attention during a conversation to hear the other’s thoughts and perspective and let it all sink in before giving your own input and interrupting their thought process.

I agree with Casel, it truly makes for an awkward conversation when interrupted. I almost feel embarrassed when I get interrupted by someone, my cheeks start to go blush and hot. It relates to hurt feelings because I feel my answer wasn’t a good enough answer and isn’t interesting so they feel the need to cut me off and change the subject. I never want the person I am interviewing to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable because once the discomfort sets in, people tend to put their guard up because they don’t feel you’re interested in what they have to say.

Therefore, I definitely believe that not being afraid to interrupt will be my main struggle. Though that being said, I am looking forward to interviewing so that when it does come to a time where I might have to interrupt I’ll be able to work the interruption in as polite as possible.

George Jones

I’m going to talk about a historical figure from the past, the legend himself, George Jones. If you hear or have heard any old country music, Jones is one of the ones that is recognized on a daily basis for his amazing music career. Here are three questions I would wish to ask him face to face if he were still with us in this world today.

First question, what was it like playing old country music back in the mid 1950’s? Was it different starting out in the olden days back then compared to your final music career years in the early 2000’s?
Why; such a difference between decades of music and song writing and you had the privilege to live through many years.

Second question, did your bad habits for appearing drunk on stage/alcoholism/drug habits effect your fan crowd?
I’m asking why, because you George Jones wrote a song with Merle Haggard that was called, “No Show Jones.”

Third and last question, you started writing songs with a musician named Tammy Wynette then later years ended up marrying each other. Three songs you wrote together ended rode to number one.
Why I’m asking; did writing together before marriage make a difference of the influence in your songs/song writing then when you two got married?

Wikipedia

Wikipedia plays quite a roll in my everyday digital life. For example, when I’m engaged in a conversation and I don’t understand the meaning to a certain thing brought up, it’s easy to pull out your phone and search it up online, get a definition on Wikipedia then be able to have an understanding or a refreshed memory of the topic then be able to simply chime into the conversation with clear understanding and better knowledge. Interesting how that works though because I personally find Wikipedia to not be the most reliable source of information. I believe choosing a different more reliable source such as a library, will have you feeling zero doubt with the information consumed through the books you read and researched for a direct source of correct information. Teachers have passed along their awareness about the potential risk of reading and receiving false information given within Wikipedia. You can read and refer to the writing skills but receive incorrect information about what you’ve just read. It’s known to lead reader’s into finding out 10 different things, negative or positive, false or true about a specific thing searched but doesn’t give you one direct source of key information like books in the library would. Therefore, I agree with my teachers opinions about being careful and not always relying on Wikipedia for correct information. Doesn’t mean each and every single thing you search and read is going to be false but it’s always better to go the safer route by going to your local public library to search and find the correct information within the books they offer.

Nicholl Small

This I Believe (Draft 1)

A deep belief of mine is morals. I believe it is truly important, especially in today’s day and age with how society is, to build on the little amount of morals we have left. Our generation lacks’ morals and proper manners. People often forget to use please and thank you on a daily basis and we need to realize that because this is being overlooked, our current generation of children aren’t getting the proper knowledge and demonstration of respect. I’d like to share a couple of examples that lack morals that I know frustrate and offend not only me, but others as well. Picture yourself driving down the highway and the lane you’re in is closing, you need to get over into the left lane and people driving in that left lane, pretend to not see you and avoid letting you into that lane. But there comes along, that one rare respectful person that waves you in. Someone with morals would wave thank you back to the person who let you in the lane. But what you see now frequently is people not acknowledging when you do let them in, they tend to not wave back in a thank you manner and it comes off as though they are entitled. Speaking of entitlement, these days people feel that they are entitled and don’t have to work for anything. Researching into our past generations, such hard work had to be done for one to have bread on the table for their family. Morals include others going out of their way to help out when they see hard work being done, always willing to lend a hand even if they have something of their own to finish. But what I’ve been picking up in our current generation is that social media takes away from morals and life. Back in the day, people would drop anything they’re doing to help another out, but now if someone is in need of help, one can’t seem to find the strength to put down their cell phone to lend a helping hand. Not to mention social media takes away from family time, historically it would be all about love and stories around the dinner table but now you can witness families sitting down at their tables for dinner and adults or kids are guilty of being on their phones instead of hearing how each other’s day was. There is such a huge change with manners and morals that it even has changed the way people communicate in love and relationships. One of my favourite quotes from the bible is, “In everything, do to others what you would want them to do to you” Matthew 7:12. That stands for manners, morals, respect. People don’t realize the true importance in life; morals, love, and family. We should take a moment each day to appreciate the good in life, not be so bitter and be thankful and good to one another.