Blog Post #14

Along with everyone else, I agree that everyone did a wonderful job on speeches last week. Many of them made me think of things I probably never would have before.  The one that I found the most interesting was Taylor’s. She brought up the topic of plastic surgery. I personally believe that our society has portrayed plastic surgery as “normal” or “pretty”, but in reality you should only have it done if your health is in danger. Getting plastic surgery because you are unhappy with the way you look is absurd. We are all born different for a reason and changing your natural characteristics makes you more and more unlike yourself. I personally have a friend from high school who got a nose job our freshman year of high school. In my opinion it was way too early for her to decide to have that surgery that changed something that cannot be changed back. I thought Taylor did a great job is showing the position she was advocating for and did it also in an interesting way. She told the audience how many children/teens/adults NEED plastic surgery because of something that is harming their health such as babies that are born with a birth defect that cannot be avoided. In situations like birth defects, I agree to believe that they deserve the right to have plastic surgery without being judged. There are many people in this world who need plastic surgery in order for survival opposed to those who get it just to enhance features they had all along.

Blog Post #13

After finishing Maus , I believe that it was a little the same and a little different from The Shallows, I think that Spiegelman and Nicholas Carr both tries to get the audience involved by using many ethos throughout their books. Spiegelman did a great job using ethos due to the fact that his book was about the Holocaust, and it was a very sad time in history, and many people who read Maus would be able to relate even though the comic book used mice instead of actual humans. In addition to Spiegelman using ethos, I believe that Nicholas Carr did a decent job using logos, which helped a lot in getting the audience to agree. Carr did a good job of making it seem like he knew what he was saying. In another sense Jonathon Safran Foer did a good job storytelling as well, but did so in a different way than Spiegelman did. I seemed to like Maus much better because of Art telling the story about his father. It was very personal and emotional, just the type of books I enjoy.

Blog Post 14

In this week, others’ speeches left a deep impression for me, especially the examples and evidences they found to support their own ideas. Personal experiences, statistical data, academic and scientific resources are selected to support ideas or prove some ideas were unreasonable. Moreover, followed those examples and resources, a brief analysis made their ideas stronger and more convincible, like Lucy’s analysis of why plastic surgery is not good for girls. For example, in Alec’s speech, he mentioned academic research results to present the view of worrying about violent games bring negative effects on youths lacked enough support from actual evidence and statistical data. It was very useful to correct the common view in our brain. And the beginning of speeches also gave me inspirations. Some speeches were began from an interesting question. Those questions expressed the controversial topics that speakers wanted to talk in next and attracted listeners attentions at the same time. Some other speakers used a small stories to begin their speeches. Those stories were interesting and significant to make listeners to think. Both questions and small stories successfully connected listeners and speakers. They created a kind of communications between them and led listeners to follow the speakers’ ideas.  

Blog Post 11

In Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, I agree with his opinions that Internet and modern technologies gradually change our behaviors in daily life. Admittedly, reading online and writing by computer software have some negative effects on our reading and writing abilities. As he mentions in the book, we prefer to extract information which is useful for us, instead of reading the entire article. So that, we give up understanding and knowing new things overall. And typing words into computer causes that we think a problem with no continuity. However, I don’t agree his attitude to deny and oppose Internet. Firstly, all his points are based on reading and writing abilities which are emphasized as a writer. He neglected the huge progress of the whole society. Computer technologies and Internet save a large amount of time and manpower. And followed with the development of advanced technologies, our economy and life standard develop rapidly. Secondly, when our society is changed by technologies in large scale, the social ideology cannot avoid to be changed. And the old standard to measure effects of technologies will also developed. However, all these process has latency. In other words, our ideas and abilities are in a process to adapt the advanced technologies. Maybe losing partial skills of reading and writing is just a temporary effect or transition. That does not means current stage is a kind of recession.