Friday, October 26, 2012

Have fun watching the big bang theory

First paragraph: includes brief introduction to the show and why I think it is worth watching it. I will also include my thesis in this paragraph.                         
  Second paragraph: I will lay down supporting points; I might also give a plot to introduce the characters and the story. Also how I got hooked with it.             
Third & Fourth paragraphs: These paragraphs will continue the work of backing up my point few details of the show and it’s relation to reality. In other words I would like to show how true and informative the content of the show is.           
Fifth & Sixth paragraphs: I will mention some other shows of its kind to compare and contrast. This will show the advantages and disadvantages of the show over the others. I will also talk about the producers and their reputation
 Seventh paragraph: Finally I will summarize my points and restate my thesis to finish the evaluation essay.

Pros                                                            Cons  
·                    Entertaining show (very funny)
·        Sometimes it takes long before new episode gets released
·                    Often it is educational and realistic topics are covered
·                    Too much commercial takes great deal of the time
·                    The show brings distinguished guests/scientists and discuss hot topics to make it up to date
·                    Limited characters and stage of action.
·                    Can be watched online for free
·                    There were few episodes with little story other than being funny
·                    Ongoing show (new episodes coming out)
·                     

WATCH IT RIGHT QUICK SO YOU CAN GET TO THE EPISODES WITH RIVER SONG!!!!/ You need to watch it because your feels depend on it!

Pros:
Cons
The idea is great
It’s just GREAT
It blows your mind
The writer, Steven Moffat, know how to make you laugh, cry, want to hide and crap your pants in one episode
Humans, Time Lords, Aliens (Characters)
After you watch it you can go on Tumblr and laugh about it
THE SOONER YOU WATCH IT THE SOONER YOU CAN MEET RIVER SONG!
It is perfect
The intensity and passion and all feelings of the     characters
Acting is impeccable
Acting, Characters, Story, Plot
THE FEELS!
You may have nightmares
You will NEVER look at a statue the same way again
There is a possibility you will get as obsessed as I am
 Some people think it's dumb and improbable those people are dumb 
Maybe a little too scary for younger viewers
THE FEELS!

Evaluation essay of Doctor Who Season 3, Episode 10, Blink
How am I going to make this into an actual essay without exploding feels and spoilers all over it? I’m so bad at this klduthlskdfgj

Outline
P1-Intro. Description of Doctor Who in all it's beautifulness
     Who is the Doctor? What is the Doctor? Why Doctor Who? The Fandom! 
                                                or
     Brief intro to Who to catch people. Talk a little about The Doctor and his Companions.
P2- He's saved the world more times than you can count and you didn't even know it.
     Thesis- Something about Blink being a worth while episode? and also why? Generic Plot of Episodes, plot of this episode.
P3- A sad man with both his hearts broken
     Story of the Doctor and his companions. Story of Revived series. Story of Blink.  Pick some Pros and include them.
P4- Spoilers!
     Characters past, present and future. Pick more Pros and include them
P5- Opposing?
     Why some people don't like Who and Whovians and  why they are WRONG
P6- Description of Doctor Who in all it's beautifulness
     Who is the Doctor? What is the Doctor? Why Doctor Who? The Fandom! River!!!!
                                            or
     Whatever else one would need to know about the Doctor and his life./ The feels
P7- Conclusion. 
     It's just wonderful and you need to watch it. River Song is my favorite. Go to Tumblr and laugh about it. Restate of thesis. 

Avatar Visuals

When looking at the poster Berardinelli displays for his review about Avatar, it definately add it's own dimensions to the review. The poster itself displays planets in the background and an overlapping of Jake's face over Neytiri's face whith the setting of the planet pandora in front of them. This poster has perception which indicates that this image represents a possible 3D movie.

The story itself is also somewhat summarized in this image. The resemblance of a setting with tons of planets in the sky, floating pieces of earth with vegetation and prehistoric-like flying creatures with futuristic helicopters indicates that a new world is going to be explored by mankind in the future. Jake's and Neytiri's face's being above all of the things in this world indicates that their relationship is going to be the focal point in the conflict. Also in the image, they are both looking in the same direction with an angry stare. Maybe they are going to be on the same side against an opposition.




I agree with Berardinelli.

The wording in the instructions of Reading Like A Writer is confusing to me, so I will do my best.
Comparisons that Berardinelli used in the second paragraph:
Avatar vs. Dances with Wolves- narrative and scifi
Avatar vs. Aliens- Space/military
Avatar vs. Titanic- Romance
Berardinelli  classifies Avatar as all of the above. It is not just a single one of them because it has aspects from the scifi in the fancy new Na'vi world and the space/military because Jake Sully is a military man and the bad guys are all working for the military, but there is romance with Jake and Neytiri. All of that packed into one wonderful movie means that it could not possibly fall into a single category. Even the poster would suggest that.

Don't Watch Sports Center

Sports Center

Pros

Cons

Shows Highlights
Can be very repetitive
Covers Major American Sports
East-Coast and Large Market Bias
In depth analysis of teams/players
Minor Sports Receive Minimal Coverage
New Show Daily
Ability to increase a Sport’s Popularity
Most popular Sports Show in US

Great Coverage of Major Sports




Outline

1st Paragraph- Description of Sports Center.
  • What is Sports Center about? Who watches Sports Center? Why is it so popular?
2nd Paragraph- My thesis.
  • My position about Sports Center.
3rd Paragraph- Support Point 1 and 2 for Thesis
  • East Coast and Large market bias. LA, Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, other east coast cities.
  • Ability to Increse a team's/sport's popularity.
4th Paragraph- Support Point 2 for Thesis
  • Can be very repetetive. Certain topics will be the headlining of the show for days even weeks.
5th Paragraph- Opposing argument.
  • Great coverage of NFL, MLB, and NBA. My response- Shows way to much of these sports while NHL (Hockey) and MLS (Soccer) are hardly ever shown.
  • What else is there to watch? My response- New networks have been emerging.
6th paragraph- Conclusion
  • Restate, but dont actually restate, my thesis.

Questions in Margins of Avatar Review

        
   It seems that James Berardinelli is indeed professional movie reviewer. Berardinelli started the review of Avatar with superlatives such as most. I think by doing so he is laying down his credentials as a reviewer. He mentioned that the filmmaker of Avatar James Cameron is also known for other popular movies. Moving on to the second paragraph he talks about traditional film elements of Avatar. These elements such as story, character, editing, theme, and emotional resonance are decisive in reviewing 2D movies. Avatar even though it’s 3D property is what makes it so special, the reviewer thinks considering those elements the movie would still be good experience even if it were 2D. He also mentioned and compared previous productions of the filmmaker of Avatar to this movie. That might be helpful in introducing the filmmaker as someone who had a very good reputation. Berardinelli then continued with introducing a plot in the movie. I don’t think this was too much detail because that only gives brief experience of the movie. Berardinelli has discussed the assumption that 3D movies are gimmick, I think he is right because I happen to be one of those who think they are gimmick. But the reviewer witnessed this was not the case in the Avatar. In Paragraph six the review points out that the movie resonates with audience because it includes some of the hot topics of our time such as humanity and environment. I found it interesting how Berardinelli went over to talk about the expectation amid describing and introducing some characters. By evaluating the genre conventions the reviewer has shown that he is not mixing and comparing irrelevant films. Following the expectation of audience with this kind of films some critiques were discussed, this makes the review broad in terms of ideas and opinions. I think not only a film review but any kind of review needs to include both positive and negative reflection in order to be complete and that is exactly what he does in the last paragraph before conclusion. Finally Berardinelli concludes his review by summarizing his active experience of the film Avatar, again the reputation of James Cameron and that it was worth waiting long time since his last product Titanic. I thought it was great review in general and it was effective way of conclusion because he mentioned how engaging the film was, he describes details of his experience watching the movie, he also talks about the producer’s credentials. In doing so he is showing how much of experience he has as a reviewer. It was entertaining and if I ever decide to watch the movie Avatar it is probably because of this review.


Friday, October 19, 2012

Writing Matters Section 11f: Logical Fallacies


 Writing Matters Section 11f details many of the logical fallacies often encountered in inductive and deductive reasoning, so that we may recognize them when analyzing and avoid them when creating arguments. The book describes and gives examples for each fallacy, so I'll just give an overview of the fallacies they list.

The book first lists fallacies often encountered in inductive arguments. In inductive arguments the conclusion (the point you are trying to make) is drawn from and supported by the premises (evidence) you provide to support your conclusion. Fallacies in inductive reasoning occur when one draws a conclusion that is not supported by the premises. Examples of these fallacies are: hasty generalization (jumping to conclusions), sweeping generalization, and false analogy. Another common fallacy often encountered in inductive and deductive arguments is bandwagon appeal (a.k.a. appeal to majority) one of many fallacies that--though they seem to provide evidence for the conclusion--are not actually valid evidence.

Next, the book details many fallacies often found encountered in deductive arguments. In deductive arguments a specific conclusion is derived from generally accepted and known premises; fallacies in deductive reasoning often take the form of misleading, wrong, or missing premises, or errors in form and logical strength of the argument. Fallacies in deductive reasoning include: begging the question (circular reasoning), post hoc, ergo propter hoc (false cause), and either-or (false dilemma or false alternative). Other fallacies often found in deductive (as well as inductive) reasoning include non sequiters (irrelevant arguments), ad hominems (personal attacks).

 The list of fallacies in the book is by no means exhaustive, but there are plenty of great resources online should you want to learn more!
Picture

"...consider the doubts you or other REASONABLE PEOPLE might have..."

I just like how it said "other reasonable people" so one knows not to talk to unreasonable people. I thought it was funny.

11h Effective arguments consider alternative viewpoints.
      This section, in my opinion, is very important because there are so many people, myself included, that don't consider other people's opinions while writing an argumentative essay. It even outlines three ways that one can go about including a consideration of the opposing views which are:

  • providing counter evidence that disproves the opposing view
  • acknowledge the opposing viewpoint and explain why it is that the writer is correct
  • use qualifiers(some, usually, etc.) to admit that there is another view.
11i Effective arguments are organized using classical, Rogerian or Toulmin models.
     I like this section because I had to write these kinds of argument papers junior year of high school since my teacher was a mad genius
  1. Classical(appropriate for persuasive arguments)- the format in which you state the purpose of your paper(in an interesting way so that people want to read it) and establish your ethos, provide your audience with information on why you are taking whatever position on what you are writing about, provide pathos and logos examples to appeal to the readers, acknowledge the counterclaim and disprove(don't be mean and be careful not to use a fallacy), conclude your essay in a way that makes the reader want to agree.
  2. Toulmin(kind of an elaboration on the classical)- In this format one also states their claim, ethos and reasons(grounds) for their claim, but one must also warrant their clams. By this I mean that one must kind of make sub-claims, or assumptions,  that explain why the claim is supported by the reasons/grounds then support the assumptions with backing evidence, pathos and or logos to explain why these sub-claims are relevant. After all that the writer should address the counterclaims and their response to those claims.
  3. Rogerian(used to establish common ground and make more productive discussions)- In this format the writer states claim and ethos, but then immediately explores and explains any and all counter claims. After all counter claims have been qualified or explained the writer may then provide an explanation of why they still believe their initial claim potentially including pathos and logos.
Congratulations, you can now write an outline for an argument essay!
Toulmin Model

I guess you only get Toulmin.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

The difference between the fallacies Post hoc and Hasty generalization



Hasty generalization and Post hoc are similar fallacies that may be caused as a result of little reasoning to back claims. But they also have significant difference, because Hasty generalization refers mainly to the inconclusiveness of the argument. This fallacy might arise from too small sample being used to get in to a conclusion that involves a big population. A good example is, “students A and B speak Spanish so every student in our campus speaks Spanish.” Post hoc on the other hand describes a fallacy that might be caused due to weak reasoning used to correlate two incidents. For instance two events happening one after the other might lead someone mistakenly conclude that the first caused the second, and this makes Post hoc different fallacy.
Reading Response:
11.b-11.c  Types of claims and building credibility
The reading explains that persuasive and exploratory writings make claims of value or claims of judgment. Both of these claims are debatable, because they depend on the person’s perspective. Whereas informative writings make claims of fact, and these claims are either true or false. The difference between these two kinds of writings is clearly defined; however the two divisions of persuasive (argumentative) and exploratory writing seems to be not that different from each other. As the name implies claims of judgment are based on one’s opinions which in most cases are temporary. Claims of value on the other hand are statements of belief, but so often people’s judgment is based on their beliefs. The reading continues on explaining how to build credibility or ethos (greek word for good character, sound knowledge, or good reputation) and it offers two ways to do that. One is to state background, another way is to show it on the writing without directly mentioning background. It was overall interesting reading with detailed explanation and examples on each point.

                                  

11d. Ethos and Pathos

Effective arguments can turn the light on in the readers head, getting you closer to actually persuading the reader. This can be done in two ways: logos and pathos. The more frequent of the two, logos, forces the reader to use logic to support a claim.  An example of this would be Usain Bolt is the greatest runner of all time because he holds the world record in the 100 metres. Pathos, on the other hand, refers to emotion to support a claim. An example of this would be a kid telling his mom "I will love you more if you buy me this."





http://www.chrismadden.co.uk/meaning/galileo-pope-church.html

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Ad Hominem Fallacy


Ad hominem—short for argumentum ad hominem (Latin: “argument against the man”)—is a fallacy committed when one attacks the character of an opponent, as opposed to truth of their evidence or validity of their argument. The ad hominem fallacy can take several forms, most commonly:

Abusive attacks, in which one belittles the character of someone, rather than addressing their evidence, for example:

Attorney: “Mr. Smith's testimony should not be trusted. He is a burglar, and as we all know, burglars are all dishonest.”

Tu quoque (Latin “you also”), in which one refutes the argument of an opponent based on the fact that they have acted inconsistently or made inconsistent claims in the past, for example:

Parent (to child): “You shouldn't smoke cigarettes, they're bad for your health.”
Child: “Why should I listen to what you say, you smoked when you were my age!”

The parent may be a hypocrite, but that doesn't make their argument any less sound!

Guilt by association, in which one attacks an opponent by associating them with another person or group who happens to hold the same opinion, for example:

Person: “I believe socialized medicine is superior to privatized medicine for X and Y reasons.”
Talk Show Host: “You know, Nazi Germany also believed in socialized medicine. Anyone who supports socialized medicine must be a Nazi, so therefore you must be a Nazi.”

Circumstantial, in which the attacker calls into question the reliability of someone's claims because they may be predisposed to hold a certain opinion, for example:

Woman: “I support the right of a woman to have an abortion for X and Y reasons.”
Politician: “Of course you would be pro-choice; after all, you are a woman.”

Sometimes, if there is a clear conflict of interest it is completely valid to question the reliability of someone's statement; however, that does not automatically make their argument invalid.

Ad hominem arguments are used when people do not have sufficient evidence to back up their own claims or refute their opponent's claims, and so they resort to attacking the arguer's character instead. It is a result of lazy thinking, and is often used to manipulate the emotions of people and sway their opinion—particularly among those who do not recognize it as a fallacy. The best way to avoid using ad hominems is through careful preparation and gathering of information, so you can refute your opponents arguments without resorting to unfair and fallacious attacks against their character. And remember: no matter how mean or hypocritical a person may be, their character has no bearing on the validity of their argument—what matters is the truth of the evidence they provide and the logical strength of their argument!

Sorry for the ad nauseam explanation :)


Friday, October 5, 2012

Peer Review of Denver English Bloggers.Blogspot.com

I quite like the look of their blog. It's simple and does not distract you while you are reading. I like that their Archive is organized in a way that shows you what they did that month and gives you the option of looking at past months. I also like that they have video as well as pictures. I would say that they should maybe try to have more variation in their post's lengths as well as more intriguing titles for their posts because everyone commenting on the same things, so if we all have titles that just state what it is we're going to get bored. Also maybe give your archive a little color just so that it stands out a little more. Spice it up a bit! But your pictures are accurate and colorful and you have great ideas and good points, so over all I like your blog.

Blog Quality Criteria
Organized/Consistent: 8
Well organized and consistently so.
Personal Connection: 10
Doesn't reach out to me, but that's hard to do. However, the poster of each post feels what they are talking about making it personal for them.
Hook/Voice: 9
 These writers appear to be very smart and know what they are talking about, but it reads very formal. I guess that could just be me, but maybe look over your posts and see how you feel about it. It's your blog, so it should sound like you.
Visually pleasing: 9
Like I said before it does not encourage the eyes to wonder which is good, but I still think it could use at least a tiny bit of color and some more interesting titles.
Multimedia: 10
There are multiple kinds of media(haha! I'm not funny). Their pictures are nice and colorful so they stand out against the black and weren't they the first ones to add a video? Good thinking.
Popularity: 7
At this point I don't think anyone is very popular, but the comments that they have seem to be positive and not totally meaningless or just fluff. You go, Glen Coco.
Timeliness/Frequency: 7

Posts are all over as far as date goes, but we don't really have the material to be doing daily posts.
Length Fits Purpose: 9
Your responses are rather lengthy, but that's probably what you felt was necessary for the point you were making. I thought maybe those could be a tad shorter and the fallacy research could be a little longer. You're the writers though, so it's up to you.


Post Hoc


Post Hoc is a fallacy that is defined simply as A caused B because A happened before B. An example of this would be Tim sneezed in Denver and a couple seconds later, a tornado hit Salina, Kansas. According to the fallacy, Tim's sneeze caused the tornado. In reality there is obviously no correlation between Tim sneezing and a tornado hitting Salina.

In order to avoid this in writing, the writer must give enough detail and supportive ideas/arguments to clearly support their claim.


Blog review for "1010insight.blogspot.com"

 

The blog "1010insight.blogspot.com" was in general informative, organized and visually attractive. Having said this there were also few things that I thought the authors could add or change to make it even better blog. Beginning with organization/consistency, I couldn't find any other way of organizing a blog better. That is why I and my blog group members decided to adopt some of the organization techniques we saw in "1010insight.blogspot.com".

Although not every post has visual added to it, the ones that contain one were imaginative and thoughtfully crafted. I thought that the authors of 1010insight.blogspot.com (Alan, Melisa and Shauna) could have added some multimedia/audio items and review the length of their posts. Other than these it was clearly popular blog in the class based on the comments it received and this shows that the blog raised good ideas discussing the topics given in class.

To summarize my review of the blog "1010insight.blogspot.com" I graded it on each of the grading points on a scale of 1 to 10. Overall it is good blog with few changes that I hope the authors will do it can be a good model.

Organization/Consistency: 10
I found the posts of the blog “1010 insight.blogspot.com”, well organized with the list of contents/posts on the right side of the page that lets you navigate directly to a specific post of your choice. Moreover I liked that the three authors were written down on one of the corners of the page.
Personal connection: 9
Since the topics discussed in the blog were same as my own posts or my group members’, they were good reference to revise and contrast. This helped me connect more with the topics.
Hook/Voice: 8
Both the posts on the blog and the comments they received created interesting characters that I think might help me keep reading this blog.
Visually pleasing: 9
I liked the transparent background on the antique living room picture with variety font types. There were also enough visuals on most posts.
Multimedia: There is no video or audio posted on the blog so I don’t think this is applicable.
Popularity: 10
There is at-least one comment on almost every post. Considering the short period of time since the beginning of the semester and the size of the audience, this blog has really received good amount of popularity.
Timeline/Frequency: 8
I don’t think posts were coming as frequent as some other blogs I’ve seen in the class, but it wasn’t that bad either.
Length fits purpose: 8
I felt that some topics were unnecessarily stretched long while others were cut short; nonetheless they all conveyed their message.


Reference: http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2012/09/blogspot-top-100-ranking-sites.html







 

Peer Blog Review Tinyline16.posterous.com

Over the week my blog group assigned me to review a blog from other students within my class known as TinyLine16. I didn’t expect this blog to be overly entertaining based on the topics our Eng 1010 class writes about. My job was to rate the blog based on the criteria that our class came up with. Compared to other blogs, TinyLine16 might be limited, but it does achieve its purpose within our class.
            The first impression of a blog comes from the main page. This can be critical in grabbing a viewer’s attention to stay on the blog and read its posts. In this case, TinyLine16 lacks some visuals but is very well thought out. When just looking at the blog, my willingness to read was diminished by a white background with hardly any visuals to look at. Despite this, the frequency and organization of the post was great. They gave me a clear understanding of what was going on and made me want to read.
            When the viewer reads the post, they should be able to understand the post with clarity. Depending on the main idea of the blog, the posts could refer to any purpose. In this case, TinyLine16’s posts are used to discuss in class topics that help our class understand how to write different types of essays. Based on this, their voice is great. The posts have a nice flow, good writing, and nice ideas. Their posts are not too long and not too short. This perfect length left me wanting to leave insight on what they wrote about.
            Blogs are supposed to relate to the viewer and allow them to participate. This can spark popularity and entertainment. While viewing and reading the blog, I came to the conclusion that TinyLine16 has a good personal connection with me. I’m in the same class and participate with the same activities, so how can the blog not relate to me? At the end of each posts, I had the option to leave a comment, which I did a couple weeks ago. Overall popularity does lack within the blog, but ENG 1010 popularity doesn’t.
            TinyLine16 is a good blog within our ENG 1010 class. Who cares about those other socially popular blogs? My first impression was negative based on the looks of the page. But besides that, everything else was great.  

Organized/Consistent-10
Personal Connection- 7
Hook/Voice- 8
Visual Pleasing- 2
Multimedia- 8
Popularity- 4
Timliness/Frequency-10
Length Fits Purpose- 10
Overall- 7.5

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

SPOILER ALERT: The Bible

     Circular Reasoning is actually a relatively easy concept to grasp, however, it is a little bit difficult to describe sufficiently, but I'll try my best. If after this you still do not understand there is always a different English 1010 blog or, better yet, no offense intended, Google. Imagine that.
    The definition that the four of us came up with for Circular Reasoning is: An argument in which one uses their conclusion as evidence for their conclusion which causes the argument to circle around the premise with no actual reasoning or factual evidence. I hope that makes sense because I'm just typing...
   How about some lovely examples? The first one that comes to mind is a tad bit controversial and whatnot, but I have encountered numerous times just this month including ten minutes ago and that is the argument of The Bible. I'm not trying to offend, I'm just commenting on what I've noticed, so cool your jets.
    This part that may offend you. Proceed with caution. 
    Last week, probably Tuesday or Thursday, I was walking home, or rather back to my room since I live in a very nice and well furnished box, and I was approached by not one, not two, but three religious women. There was one obvious leader, one who just stood in front of people to block their path and one who ended up behind me(probably to prohibit any attempted escape). The leader started with "Are you interested in studying the word of God?" and to that I say "Uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhmmmmmmm?". You have to imagine the darting eyes and confused look to get the full effect. (Qualifiers: I have been to a church for a religious reason a total of three times in my whopping 18 years of existence and have never once picked up a Bible or actually even attempted to figure out what all of this religion stuff is about, so it is safe to assume that I have NO FUGGIN' CLUE WHAT IS GOING ON.) So she, the leader, is asking me all of these questions about God and "how do you get to heaven" and that kind of thing and my brains are just all over the wall(aka I don't know what's going on or how to answer). This is where I actually get to the point. I've heard so many people say that the logic of the Bible is one big circle as well as other things, but we won't mention those, but I didn't really believe it until I was listening to the leader talk and read excerpts from her Bible. She would stop and say this is the word of _____ and he was an interpreter or something for God and he wrote down what God told him and then it was put into this book and we know that it is His word because the book says so and there is no flaw in this logic because it is what God says(she may not have used those words).
    Wait WHAT? How does that...? What?
    So I was standing there on the sidewalk watching people walking every which way, passing us and giving us weird looks and all I can do is stare at her and nod because I didn't grow up with this so, I'm not used to the stories and the "believe in what you can't see" logic which means I'm staring at her with a blank look on my face and saying "Okay?" to all of her questions, but she still keeps Bible-ing away(see what I did there? Babbling, Bible-ing.).
    To sum up, Circular Reasoning is basically A is true because B is true because A is true because B and so on and so forth. In order to avoid this unfortunate fallacy use evidence that supports your idea instead of describing it or using the idea as evidence.
    And that's the show!

P.S. I am truly sorry if I offended someone, but it's all I could think of and really is a good example.

the story from this post is brought to you by Sarah, so don't yell at the boys because they came up with the definition and did not aid me in the writing of the story.
Picture Link