2 years ago, I hardly ever annotated anything I read. If I did, it was only because I was required to for an assignment and I would generally just do some passive highlighting or something similarly unengaging. Taking ENG110 for the first time last year introduced me to what it actually means to engage with a text, and just like my experience with strategies for revision, I have continued to build on my annotation skills this semester. My general process for reading academically now is to have a highlighter and black pen handy, and ask questions as I go. I use the highlighter as a tool to emphasize interesting or particularly important passages, being careful not to simply highlight everything I come across but instead look for big claims, or repeated themes/keywords. I will then sometimes use the pen to write down these themes/keywords, or write any questions that immediately spring to mind. The pen is also useful for me to note the overall purpose of a paragraph, which helps me find particular points when re-reading and also prompts me to consider the author’s intent. That particular revelation that in academic writing every paragraph and sometimes even every sentence has a defined purpose has been incredibly helpful for me both in my comprehension and composition. Just like with revision, I have continued to employ old annotation strategies but have also developed new ones. This semester, when using a text as a source in my writing, I have been making a habit of going back and re-reading the text, annotating further. This time around, I think about the source material in the context of the project, using a red pen to star and underline sections that could be pulled to use as quotations. This can be seen in the included pictures of annotation above, where I worked with texts from David Foster Wallace and Michael Pollan for paper 2. This process was incredibly helpful, and formed the backbone of my initial outlining and drafting for that paper.
Journals showing critical response to course readings
Journal #3
I think the core takeaway from the chapter is the idea that the book seems to be named for, the “They Say/I Say” format. It is an interesting and helpful way of thinking about quotations when used in writing. A writer uses quotations to provide evidence and/or credibility to their ideas. An essay is essentially a discussion; In this way, quotations are valuable to represent what “They Say”, “They” being the author whose text you are referencing. You cannot simply place the quote into your writing without any kind of input and then move on. To make the quote valuable, you then have to provide your side of the discussion, whether you agree or disagree, etc. In other words, you have to provide the “I Say”. Otherwise, the quote loses its function. This revelation was very helpful for me when I first read this book last year. It is still valuable information to review going into more academic writing as the semester progresses. I have definitely been guilty of “hit and run” quotations in the past. Oftentimes, it is helpful for me to ask myself why I included the quotation in the first place. The answer can generally guide my explanation of the quote in my writing. If I can’t answer the question, I need to either use a different quote or look a bit deeper at what exactly I’m trying to convey. Another helpful tidbit from the chapter relating to the same idea is the concept of a “quotation sandwich”. This concept is a simple reminder that quotes need to be both introduced and explained.
Journal # 7
“What the Crow Knows” by Ross Andersen is an interesting and thought-provoking piece of writing. Central to the discussion in question is the idea of animal consciousness, exactly what that means, and how we have come to understand a bit more about it. Andersen discusses his experience learning about Jainism – a belief system that goes to the very extremes to not harm animals and other living beings. He also discusses scientific breakthroughs and discoveries telling us more about the brains of other organisms we share the earth with. A lot of this is fairly recent stuff, at least from a scientific perspective (the Jains seem to have been considering this for a very long time). The first thing that came to mind for me when reading this article was some of the content of one of my all-time favorite pieces of media, Blue Planet 2. In Blue Planet 2, Attenborough calls attention to our new understanding of intelligence of animals in the ocean. We’ve always known dolphins were smart, and he of course highlights that, but he also narrates over some incredible footage that challenges our understanding of fish intelligence. There is one clip where a Tuskfish is shown using tools — A specific spot on some coral that it has been using apparently to crack open clams for food. Another clip demonstrates a grouper working in tandem with an octopus to hunt its prey, using special signals. Groupers and octopuses are not even in the same phylum, so this type of cross-species communication is really impressive. This got me to thinking about the idea of intelligence vs. consciousness. What exactly is consciousness? The term seems inherently more philosophical than it does scientific. It seems to me that we define animals as conscious (and often therefore valuable) when they experience the world most similarly to us. This reminds me of our discussion on Consider the Lobster, when Wallace talks about lobster’s ability to exhibit preference. It seems increasingly clear that many animals are intelligent in ways we did not until recently understand. It can be assumed that they experience the world quite differently than we do; Is this human idea of consciousness even applicable to most other species? Why should it matter if it does or doesn’t? This is a really big can of worms.
