Diego Fernandez
Journal #17
Regarding page 2, paragraph 3.
In this passage, Herzog describes the action Jim takes to feel morally right. This is essential to Herzog’s argument that this issue is complex and individual to everyone. Jim releasing his bird into the North Carolina skies is for him to ease his own conscience, and is not necessarily morally right, but it feels right to him.
Regarding page 4, paragraph 5
Herzog uses this passage to back up his argument of questionable morality with statistics on feeding requirements of a cat vs. a snake. Herzog is using logic and numbers to show that despite our emotional reaction, snakes should be less morally questionable as pets than cats. Snakes consume far less meat per year, and so they require less killing of animals.
Regarding page 5, paragraph 2
Here, Herzog describes how he has put himself in an uncomfortable place concerning cats and snakes. Logically, cats should be the moral high ground when compared with snakes. However, emotion causes us to not want to accept that fact. Herzog uses this passage to highlight tension between what is logical and what is emotionally desirable.
Regarding page 7, paragraph 4
Herzog brings about the end of this excerpt by defending his position in the middle. Here he drives his point home that it is personal and morally complex for everyone. Herzog outlines his own views while also defending his position in the “troubled middle”. He asserts that the “troubled middle” is the most realistic and contemplative place to be on the issue of animal rights.
Journal #16
This reading was certainly thought-provoking, and brought up some interesting ideas. As Andersen grappled with the idea of consciousness, I was reminded of experiences I’ve had in my own life. I’ve been part of the aquarium hobby for a few years now, caring for fish and invertebrates. One of the biggest issues in the aquarium hobby is a dismissal by many people of fish intelligence/capacity for pain. Fish are generally thought of as lesser than our other, more conventional pets, and as such, they are very widely mistreated. As someone who is passionate in caring for these animals and has observed their complex behaviors, it is heartbreaking. It used to be believed that fish don’t feel pain, or experience suffering in the way we do. Andersen talks about lab experiments on fish that show clear and extreme distressed upon being injected with acid. BBC’s Blue Planet 2 has an episode where they showcase the intricate social interactions of reef fish, and they even highlight a fish that uses tools. Tool use is seen as one of the possible pieces of evidence for a conscious mind. I was blown away by Andersen’s description of Jainism. At first, I almost didn’t believe it was real. Their practices are very extreme, but I think they are maybe onto something. The more science progresses, the more we start to recognize aspects of possible consciousness in other species, even fish. That consciousness may not be the same as ours, but does that make it any less important/valuable? And how does intelligence correlate to consciousness? The fundamental issue here is as Andersen described; since we do not have a scientific grasp of consciousness, it becomes a philosophical issue. Philosophy is extremely subjective and frankly, convoluted.
Journal #15
This paper was quite a learning experience for me. At the beginning of the process, I felt very good about it. I had lots of ideas, and I hit most of the important beginning benchmarks for progress. I think this lulled me into a false sense of security, because after reaching the 1,000 word benchmark and receiving class peer review, my work essentially halted for a time. I don’t know if other classes were on my mind or what, but I didn’t devote the time the essay needed towards the end of the project. It came around to the last few days before the essay was due and I began working on it again, feeling confident that I knew what I was going to write and had plenty to work with once I wanted to revise. But then I hit some kind of mental block. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to write. All my ideas were already well outlined and just needed to be put on the paper. Something about this essay and its scope and the integration of the sources was intimidating to me, and I struggled to get myself to finish the paper. For whatever reason I was also just having an off week, and I couldn’t seem to get myself to focus enough to make any substantial progress, no matter how hard I tried. Eventually, I got it done, as I always do. But I really wish I could’ve done so in a less hurried and stressed manner, so I could really do the paper justice. I learned a lot from this experience though. Even if I feel like I’m in a good place with a project, I need to be scheduling time to work on it, even if it is just 30 minutes or an hour every day. Without that structure, long-term projects tend to get pushed to the backburner as I deal with assignments from other classes, or struggle to focus. The first few weeks of the project with clear benchmarks really felt good to me, and I’m going to do my best to structure my time better in Project 3.
Journal #14
To be honest, I expected a 30-minute podcast from NPR, a radio station my mom listens to, to be incredibly boring. I was so wrong. This podcast was incredibly interesting and unique, talking about death in a light I’ve never heard it talked about before. Caitlin Doughty was very well-spoken and struck me as sounding incredibly intelligent, but also very down-to-earth. There was a bit of interesting tension between her and Terry Gross, the interviewer, especially during the middle section of the interview. Gross seemed to find it difficult to accept what Doughty was advocating, and honestly I feel like Doughty really commanded the interview from that point on. Of course, a good interviewer makes the interview about their subject, but they usually guide them to certain topics and have a sort of authority of being the “host”. I thought that Doughty made Gross sound a bit ignorant at times. Doughty’s force of personality can be felt even through just listening to the interview. It never feels like she is overbearing, though. She simply has a captivating perspective and a matter-of-fact tone that makes her points seem that much stronger. This charismatic personality was highlighted for me when she said she embraces the Wednesday Addams look, in an effort to get more attention to her “cause”. I have never really thought about death in such a pragmatic light before. When Doughty described the embalming process, the first thing that came to my mind was, “I would never want that to be done to me.” I’ve been to a few open-casket wakes and I’m certainly in the camp Doughty described as not liking the embalmed look. I’ve never talked with my parents about what they want for their ceremonies, but I’m starting to wonder if maybe I should. Doughty’s views on “home funerals” may be a bit extreme for me, but it is a very interesting idea to entertain. I just can’t imagine keeping the body of one of my loved ones in my home, but maybe there is something to be said for the natural process, and how that may affect “letting go”. Many people struggle with the idea of their loved one not being around anymore. Sometimes I still think I could be going to see my grandmother, but then I remember she is gone. I bet that the natural process Doughty describes would aid with that sort of “subconscious denial” many of us go through. That being said, it’s a little much for me.
Journal #13
When revising what I have of my Project 2 paper so far, there were two significant “moves” I made. Going into this year, I had little experience actually revising. In high school, it was usually one-and-done drafts or bare-minimum surface-level editing. In Project 1, I did something closer to what I did in high school, where I revised as I wrote. Because of that, I struggled to do any real revision once the time came around. I played with my writing a little bit but did not make any significant changes. I now know that I’m much better off writing and getting ideas down, spending time away from the piece, and then moving things around a re-writing pieces, sort of like a puzzle. With my favorite meal revisit I developed a new strategy for revision which I used for my Project 2 draft. I sort of emulated the rating system I use when sorting photographs in post-production software to help me focus in on what paragraphs need work and why. I copied the whole essay so far into OneNote, and then my first step was to identify the purpose of each paragraph/section. I then gave a rating of 1-5 stars, how well I think the paragraph fulfills that purpose. Under that I’d note down a few specific things that could use changing. After I mapped things out, so to speak, my next significant “move” was to start enacting the changes I had planned. I focused in on my introduction specifically, as it needed the most work. I cut out a large portion of the anecdotal narrative I had originally written and re-wrote it with less detail, making it more concise. I also considered taking the two paragraphs and making them one, but eventually as I added back in parts I think deserved to be there it again became two paragraphs. The second paragraph originally felt more like a body paragraph; I had started to get into points that I felt were “stepping on the toes” of my later arguments. I cut that piece as well, and re-ordered some sentences to fit with the new bits I wrote. All in all I think I succeeded in improving my introduction. Everything will get more than one revision of course, but now at least I feel the introduction works.
Journal #12
This chapter of They Say/I Say was particularly interesting to me because it discussed reading and understanding more so than actually writing. An idea that I’m now learning is central to the They Say/I Say “formula” is the idea that in order to write well, or speak well, You first have to be able to listen, understand, and consider. In other words, you need to be familiar with what They Say before you can do any “saying” for yourself. This chapter discussed how to get the “They Say” of other writers into focus, and why it’s important to do so. Instead of reading another writer’s work and thinking about what their argument is, it can be helpful to instead think about what argument they are responding to. This is not something I think I do very often. I think most people, myself included, think very much about “what is the author trying to get at” rather than “what is the author responding to, why are they writing this?”. Looking at the recent Michael Pollan piece we read for class, I originally read it looking for Pollan’s angle. I concluded that he was arguing that cooking is essential to our culture and wellbeing. Now, I can look back on it and try to decipher what the “They Say” in his piece is. Really, counterargument to Pollan’s essay would be coming from proponents of the Food Network, and those like Rob Rhinehart who see the decline of cooking as another step in our evolution. They would argue that this is the natural progression for mankind, and that cooking is too time-consuming and inefficient. It almost feels like thinking in reverse to be asking first who or what the author is rebutting, but is very helpful in order to understand the purpose of their essay. It is a strategy that I will certainly be trying to follow more for future readings.
Journal #11
- The first passage in Pollan’s piece that jumps out to me as critically important to his big idea/main point is the last paragraph on page 9, continuing into the first paragraph on page 10. This passage discusses how Food Network has transformed our view of cooking with how it presents cooking to us. Pollan states that cooking is now being viewed like a spectator sport, and is less about cooking itself and more about eating. I agree with Pollan’s assessment, being guilty of watching plenty of food network myself. Pollan would discouraged to hear that I am a fan of Guy Fieri’s various shows; he seems to have a special dislike for Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, which he mentions later in the article. Triple D is certainly more about eating food and enjoying food than it is about cooking. Guy’s Grocery Games is more about the cooking, but as a competition-oriented show, everything happening on the screen is far too quick and impractical for a viewer to learn from. Rather, we relish watching the competition, seeing the final product, and listening to the judges sophisticated opinions of the meals they are tasting.
- The next passage in Pollan’s piece that strikes me as important is the 3rd and 4th paragraphs on page 13. Pollan is discussing why it is exactly that food TV interests us more than other things, and his argument is that it is a psychological thing. I agree with his assessment for the most part. Food TV is attractive because as humans we have a psychological attraction to food. Seeing delicious meat on the screen evokes a primitive instinct from deep within that will be attracted to what it’s seeing, at least to some extent. Many other things simply don’t activate our psyche like that. I would also argue, however, that it is more than a primitive attraction to food that keeps us watching. Many Food Network shows are also about the heat of competition and are rife with drama. Based on our tendency to watch bad soap operas like Grey’s Anatomy, I’d say there is some psychological attraction to social drama as well.
- I am particularly drawn to the 1st paragraph of page 17. Pollan discusses the possible evolutionary importance of cooking, and argues that cooking must not go away because it is part of what makes us human. I don’t entirely agree with Pollan here, even if I would really like to. While I don’t wish to see the world rid of cooking and conventional food, this paragraph got me thinking – What if doing away with cooking is simply the next step in our evolution? Once, we did away with eating raw meat and scavenging, and our culture evolved and changed as we had more time and energy for other things. Could a similar shift happen again? It’s a bit too science-fiction for my tastes, but I feel like it’s something that needs to be considered. Pollan neglects to acknowledge this notion in this paragraph, focusing instead on only the preservation of what was. Later on, he does discuss how lack of cooking could possibly change humanity, but he seems to stand by it being more important that we stick to it than anything else.
Journal #10
I loved this little web piece. The pictures added a personal touch that took me deeper into each contributor’s short narrative. Honestly, some of these little narratives were very emotionally moving to me, despite their short length and generally casual attitude. The more I read stuff like this, the more I am coming to care for food – and not just how it tastes. A dish can contain powerful memories and emotions. I was struck by how many of these short narratives were not about well put-together, fine meals but about quirky or unusual snacks or experiences associated with them. I found the first narrative about the Bunsen burner crepes to be very funny/captivating. I can imagine the joy and spontaneity of it very well. The narrative about rejected pumpkin pudding pulled a significant emotional response from me. I can certainly remember times I was cruel to family members that did not deserve it. It really makes you think to appreciate who you have while you can. Similarly, in the narrative about the fruit boat, the author laments that they never got to ask their father about it because he passed away when they were a teenager. This was another reminder to me that we don’t necessarily know when someone we love will be taken from us, and its important to connect with them while we can. But food can also preserve the memories we have. I know for certain that when my grandmother passes, I will hold many of my fondest memories with her in the food she used to cook. I’d love to know more about some of these stories. I’m curious as to why the writer of Haunted by a Rejected Pumpkin Pudding no longer has access to that recipe. Did her mother throw it away when she insulted it, are they not on speaking terms, or did her mother pass away, taking the recipe with her? These narratives are bursting with life, and the article compiling them is certainly a clever way to showcase food as more than just food.
Journal #8 – They Say/I Say Response
1.
a.You would think that drinking water we pull from aquifers is safe, but our experiments suggest that there are dangerous levels of chemical X in the Ohio groundwater.
b. It’s a nice sentiment to think that brave individuals shaped our civilizations, but in reality, material forces drive history.
c. Although they do not say so directly, proponents of Freudian psychology question standard notions of “rationality”.
d. Many people assume that female students are more active in the classroom, but male students often dominate class discussions.
e. At the same time I believe it is an action movie, I also believe that the film is about the problems of romantic relationships.
f. Despite my professor’s assertions otherwise, I’m afraid that templates like the ones in the book will stifle my creativity.
2. If ever there was an idea custom-made for a Jay Leno monologue, this was it: People that prefer the Harry Potter movies to the books. Isn’t that like preferring McDonald’s over steak? Whatever happened to appreciation of literature?
I happen to sympathize with people who prefer the Harry Potter movies to the books, though, perhaps because I found the books so repetitive.
Journal #7 – Discussing Peer Review
- The global comments and suggestions from my peers that were most useful were those that critiqued my paper and pointed about what could be better. While comments complimenting bits of the essay were reassuring, they did little to help improve my writing. Especially useful were critiques pointing out areas where ideas seemed unclear – as a writer, it can be difficult to recognize when things aren’t explicitly clear, since our mind fills in the gaps in our own ideas.
- I think the best suggestions I offered my peers involved the structure and language of their writing. I suggested one of my peers strengthen their essay by using more assertive language. They had taken a very passive tone, but by injecting their opinion more the piece would be more interesting while also taking a stronger stance. They seemed hesitant to really voice their opinions, So I tried to encourage them to do so.
- Some elements that did not come across in comments were raised in discussion, which was helpful. In the comments of Amanda’s essay, I referenced some run-on sentences she had used. In conversation we talked more about it and what strategies she could use to remedy them, things I didn’t mention in the comments.
- Looking back on my peer review comments, I wish everyone involved in the process (myself included) had simply been a little more critical. It is difficult to shake the feeling of needing to be polite with people you don’t know very well when reviewing their work, but the compliments are significantly less helpful than the critiques.
- This format of peer review is significantly more intensive/time consuming (but also more useful) than what we did in high school. High school peer review was often just surface level editing between 2 people. The group format and necessity to dig deeper than surface level created peer review that was actually useful and helped to improve the work of everyone involved.
Journal #6 – Peer Review
Journal #3 – “The Art of Quoting” Response
1. I decided to examine the quotations used in a BBC news article, “Water found for first time on potentially habitable planet” written by Pallab Ghosh. In the article, Ghosh discusses the exciting discovery of a planet 111 lightyears away whose atmosphere likely contains around 50% water, and could potentially support life. The writer frequently uses quotations from scientists in his article, seemingly in order to lend credibility and highlight some of the exciting implications of it. Ghosh does this in a pretty consistent format, in which he introduces a discovery/new information, and then introduces a scientist to comment on it. An example is as follows:
One difficulty with this approach, though, is that astronomers can’t agree on which gases would constitute evidence of life. That might be more of a longer haul.
It is likely to require a survey of the chemical composition of, perhaps, hundreds of worlds and an understanding of how they are created and evolve, according to Prof Tinetti.
“The Earth really stands out in our own Solar System. It has oxygen, water and ozone. But if we find all that around a planet around a distant star we have to be cautious about saying that it supports life,” she said.
“This is why we need to understand not just a handful of planets in the galaxy but hundreds of them. And what we hope is that the habitable planets will stand out, that we will see a big difference between the planets that are habitable and the ones that are not.”
Ghosh introduces the quote by talking about its content. He essentially uses the quote as a support for what he states before it. He does very little to tie it back in after though, opting instead to simply move on to the next point of discussion. Despite this and what I’ve read this chapter, I don’t think I would change it much. Since the style of writing is reporting, it feels less like Ghosh is taking a stance he needs to back up and more like he is just using the quotations for credibility. They aren’t tough to understand, and anything that is slightly ambiguous he seems to outline prior to the quote.
2. Funny enough, my google account from highschool which contained all of the academic writing I’ve done in the past 4 years was wiped, so I have literally 0 writing pieces to pull off of here, as it was all contained on google drive. I remember being somewhat inconsistent with my usage of quotes. In some assignments I remember introducing and explaining them, albeit briefly. In others, I fear I left lots of quotes “dangling” with little to no support. We learned little about how to properly use quotes in high school, just that we were supposed to use them. Many essays I wrote were “in-class” essays in which we had no access to any source material for quotes. I don’t think my usage of quotes was very effective, aside from the odd gem or two that actually pulled my argument together.
Journal #2 – Drafting
To be frank, my drafting/revising process in high school left a lot to be desired. Like many students, I think, I would usually procrastinate until the last minute, and then “bang out” the essay in one draft, and often receive a B+ or an A on it. I’ve always had issues with procrastination, and high school did little to change it, since the aforementioned method was stressful but often yielded good results. I know now, however, that I cannot live my life like this. Throughout most of high school, at least academically, I completed work in a very mediocre fashion. In fact, in most areas of my life, I felt as though I was doing what I needed in order to get by, but little more. Even if I wanted to be better, it was rare that I could break the mold I created for myself and really do anything stand-out. Part of that likely has deeper roots than I’d care to discuss here, but I’ve been living this way for far too long now. “Banging it out” at the last minute, writing one draft without revisions, is going to have to come to an end. I mean that literally regarding writing, but also figuratively for many other aspects of my life. I know that I have the capacity to do better work, but acting on that knowledge has proved difficult. I write this as we have an upcoming essay that I have not yet started. Changing my ways will take time, effort, and likely some discomfort, but it is a necessary step for me to take to advance my academic self. Looking around the university, there are many Marine Biology students, many with more appealing resumes than me. To be better than average, to stand out, I’m going to have to take my work to the next level, in part with proper drafting and revisions. There was only one piece throughout all of high school that I remember putting multiple drafts and sessions of revision into – my college essay. The process genuinely served to improve that piece a good deal. My initial draft was quite poor; I was unused to writing essays like that, and it mainly served to get my ideas on paper and be somewhere within the ballpark of the word count limit. As I revised, using my peers, teachers, and parents as resources, I received advice that I incorporated into my writing to eventually create an essay that I’m rather proud of.
Journal #1 – DFW
1. David Foster Wallace’s essay is a very interesting piece that (perhaps intentionally) leaves much unanswered. As such, I’d love to question him about it. One of my first questions would be about his decision to utilize footnotes the way he did. Wallace uses footnotes a lot in his essay, and they often are so dense that it begs the question if they should really be footnotes at all. A few of Wallace’s footnotes held what I believe to be crucial information for his essay, or at least information that’s important. Another question I would ask Wallace is less technical and much more broad: How did writing the essay impact his day-to-day decisions consuming meat/lobster, specifically? By the end of the essay, it feels as though Wallace has taken a stance, however personal and tentative it may be. I’m curious to know more about this stance and if it stuck with him or if it was simply a fleeting moment of concern. I’m also curious, did Wallace ever consider “tidying up” the essay somewhat, making it more formal/concise and easy to digest? It feels very rambly sometimes, and always uses a fairly informal tone. I’m curious if Wallace intended to use this as a device to make the essay more interesting/“from the heart”, or if he ever second-guessed his decision?
2. Written discussion is limited because it is by default a monologue, not a dialogue. Rather than truly discussing something in real time, the writer has to take a stance and say their whole piece all at once. This has its merits, but also its challenges. A written piece allows the writer to thoughtfully construct and revise their argument, and present it without interruption. However, it also means that the writer has to try and anticipate their opponents’ rebuttal and account for that in their writing. A writer may anticipate their audience’s questions by peer review during revision, or by trying to get into the mindset of their audience members while writing. Dialogue also allows for quick, evolving debate to take place. Written-form discussion is considerably slower and arguably less malleable.
