Letter to the Students

Dear 110 Students,

Right now your probably sitting reading this blog counting the seconds until this class is over and thinking I have plenty of time before our first prompt is due, why should I worry about it now? My advice would be to worry about it as soon as possible. Waiting until the last minute is not a good idea and only causes more stress and probably produces inferior papers. This happened to me when writing my Commonplace essay, I thought I had plenty of time, but then the deadline was upon me and I had to submit my paper before I was happy with it. I would suggest doing yourself a favor and writing it in batches well before the deadline.

Another piece of advice would be to really go in depth in your analysis. If you think you have gone far enough, you should probably go into even more detail. Make sure you explain everything ("make the implicit explicit") and leave nothing to the reader's imagination. Also, make sure that you draw conclusions from you analysis, this will really make your paper stronger.

The last bit of advice I am going to give you would be to come to class prepared. The teacher doesn't really like it when basically no one reads the required material. But if people do forget, at least you will be on the teacher's good side because you did what you were supposed to. Good luck in English 110.

Tyler Phillips

Two-Eyed Nerds

The commonplace essay Four-Eyes No More brings up an interesting point: the persona of nerds is changing. To prove the point author Chris Hofer compares television shows from the 1990s to television shows of today. While popular culture does sometimes reflect everyday life and people, these shows are not to be taken as fact. The author uses Steve Urkel of Family Matters as an example for how nerds used to be. This may have been how some nerds used to act in everyday life, but I have never known someone quite as obnoxious as Steve Urkel. The author then brings up shows such as The Big Bang Theory and NUMB3RS as sources of comparison for how the nerd has changed over the years. The author claims that NUMB3RS contains an attractive nerd with an attractive wife and says that this should be enough to prove that nerds are different today than they were 10, 20, and even 30 years ago. The author seems to fail at differentiating between television and reality. How does putting a "normal" nerd on television affect how nerds act in reality? While I agree that the persona of nerds has changed, I do not think the nerds themselves have changed. Maybe the line between nerd and normality is becoming blurred with more people not being a full nerd like Steve Urkel, but being a "normal" person with the flashes of nerdiness that the author claims everyone has.

Zero Score and Three Years Ago

With Mass Effect 2 out for sale now, the debate that surrounded the original Mass Effect in 2007 seems like a distant memory. The controversy over the content of the game was brought to question by the media and then parents all over America. Because the media made a big deal of the games "full digital nudity" as Fox News put it, "experts" began to debate the effect of video games on children. Fox News wasn't the only one debating this topic, CNN was also. No matter what news channel you watched Mass Effect and video games were being debated. The media brought up an argument that had not been discussed a whole lot before that point. This alerted parents to the "dangers" of video game playing and caused the video game industry to reassess its rating system. This debate is one that should have never been brought up. If a parent is going to by his kid a video game, it is the parents responsibility to find out whether the game is appropriate, not the media or government.

The Blurring of Lines

Eric Trager's blog "Palin at Fox Will Blur the Line Between News Analysis and Politicking" is an engaging article meant for those with their own strong political views. The blog also caters more to the democratic side of politics. The title of the blog mentions Sarah Palin, later mentions Mike Huckabee's show as terrible, and indicates that Fox News' integrity should be questioned with three republicans on its payroll. The blog brings up an evermore popular idea, having politicians as newscasters. The blog criticizes this trend because the author, Eric Trager, says that it would be difficult to discern between real news and the newscasters political agenda. Because the blog is written in an informative but casual tone, the blog becomes very compelling and the author seems more believable. This is also enhanced by the layout of the webpage. The page is set up like a newspaper article, with links on the sides and bottom to other political articles and videos. These other sources of information create a sense that this blog is a trustworthy political blog. Because of all these factors, the fact that this article was a blog does not affect my belief that it is trustworthy. In this case, since the blog is published on a news website, it is no different than an editorial in a newspaper. The analysis of this blog is very similar to the ones in class as in every analysis we've done, we have looked at different aspects of the media and talked about how they can be interpreted and who they are meant to be interpreted by.

Refrigerator Impressions

Everyone has heard that you can tell a lot about a person based on the contents of the refrigerator, right? Well, maybe no one has heard that before, but you are able to guess a lot about someone based on these contents. Lets consider the contents of my refrigerator for a moment: milk, water, pop, with tv dinners in the freezer. From these, people would be able to tell that I don't really cook much, but when I do it usually involves sticking a frozen tray into the microwave. It would reasonable to think that I am lazy based on only having tv dinners, and one wouldn't be completely wrong to think that. Of course I am lazy, what human isn't to some extent? I am not lazy in every aspect of my life, just in things that do not really matter and therefore are not worth exerting matter, like cooking. The milk might suggest that I like cereal, which I do, but when I eat it I prefer to eat it without the milk (the milk makes the cereal too soggy). The food found in my refrigerator does not tell my entire store though, I actually do enjoy a variety of food. The contents of my refrigerator might suggest that I am a bland person because I do not have very much variety in my refrigerator, but I do not think I am a bland person. So if you ever go over to someone's house and see their refrigerator, do not make any quick judgements because they might be wrong.

First Day

The Time person of the year in 2006 was a very interesting choice compared to David Brooks' article "The Outsourced Brain". Brooks' article brought up an interesting point, but a point that cannot really be pursued. In the article he basically said that technology was making the younger generation of people lazier and stupider. While this may be true, no one is going to stop technology from eventually taking over peoples' brains. The contrast between the article and the Time cover is what makes Time's person of the year in 2006, "You." so compelling. The cover implies that everyone has the power to do what they want and can influence future technology, differing from the article saying technology controls us. In the end, you can't stop the growth of technology, so why not just try to make the best of it and maybe discover the technology that will totally take over brains and make David Brown, I mean Brooks, happy.