Journal 1:
I would ask David Foster Wallace what made him think to write about the lobster if his opinion is on how animals are morally less important than humans. The majority of the paper was about how unethical it is that humans boil lobsters when they are still alive and how people believe they can’t feel pain when there is evidence that they can in a way. I would ask him if he wrote this to show people how cruel it is to eat lobster, or if he was just questioning people’s morals about eating lobster. I would also be curious to ask him how it made him feel when he was writing this paper, even though he explained how it is selfish of him but he wants to continue to eat the way he does, but maybe it did influence him in a way. I wonder if it had any affect on his choices of food to eat, or if he even considered trying to eat less meat or even lobster.
I believe that there are many limitations to a written discussion, one of them is that you can’t tell the tone of the reader and how they really feel about the piece they are writing. It’s hard to tell where someone stands on the topic, like in this piece, we didn’t know what David Foster Wallace’s opinion on the topic was until the last paragraph. The whole paper was on how unethical it is to eat lobsters and how cruel people are for doing it and then at the end David Foster Wallace states how he isn’t going to change the way he eats and believes animals are less important than humans. Another limitation is that you can’t ask questions when you are reading a piece, which just makes you sit there having all of these questions about the topic unlike if it was an open discussion.
Journal 2:
When I have a paper due or I have to write about something, it normally takes me a little while to get started. Usually I have to plan everything out and take notes or write down thoughts before I start typing my essay. After I was finished typing my first draft I would either go to a teacher to get feedback or one of my peers. It’s sometimes hard to get feedback from a classmate because some people don’t take things seriously or may not know how to fix something in the paper. In highschool we would have classmates peer review our papers which was helpful occasionally but also made me check over my work multiple times to make sure it looked and sounded correct. After I had gotten my paper peer reviewed I would begin to type it and fix the errors that were found. I would read it over constantly because it’s really easy to read over mistakes.
Journal 3:
The chapter “The Art of Quoting” taught me a lot of things that I didn’t realize about quoting, or at least things that I never thought of while I was writing papers. I never thought about how when you put a quote in your paper and continue to write, that the quote might end up not having any meaning as you get further into writing the paper. It is really important to go back into your writing and read back over the quotes to see if they still make sense after the paper is completed. This chapter helped me a lot and was really helpful in showing the steps to putting a quote in an essay and what to do before and after you insert the quote. I think it is really important to explain the quote in detail after you insert it because the people reading your writing might not understand why you chose the quote or what the meaning of it is. I never really thought about overexplaining a quote, but maybe that’s because I don’t explain them enough. I will definitely continue to use this book as I am writing my papers because it was very helpful and by using the knowledge I gained from this chapter I will hopefully be able to improve my writing.
Journal 4:
(Page 5, Paragraph 4). This paragraph was interesting to me because Rhinehart has supposedly come up with a cheap alternative to food that is healthy for you. His alternative would probably make people really interested in buying it because most of the only cheap food available is fast food which can turn to people becoming obese, getting diabetes and malnutritioned. So if there is a healthy choice that is also around the same price as fast food, then people will most likely go for the healthier option.
(Page 8, Paragraph 6 and 7). This paragraph interests me because Rhinehart does have a point. In hospitals, people drink their food all the time if they aren’t able to chew their food, along with many diets that have shakes as food supplements. I realize most people wouldn’t only live off of liquid food, but many people that are dieting or trying to gain muscle will drink shakes (protein shakes). The only difference is people in the hospital are basically forced to drink their food unlike people who are choosing to live off of soylent.
(Page 14, Paragraph 5). This paragraph talks about how much of our days revolve around food and how soylent is a perfect solution to that. Rhinehart talks about how if you have something bad to eat then your body feels that all day, but with soylent you won’t have that problem. He also talks about how his meals aren’t an issue, but when he doesn’t want to do his work, he doesn’t know what to do instead because he doesn’t have to go out to get food. To me, going out to eat gets you to do something during the day and is a social aspect of your day. You can go out with your friends and catch up, but having soylent stops you from being social in a way.
Journal 5:
This chapter was very interesting to me because there were many things I didn’t know about like the “They say; I say” formula. I never thought about how you have to express your own ideas and then also express what they are saying or having a response to what they are saying. If you don’t respond to what they say then your argument probably won’t have a point or make sense. People will wonder what you are responding to or what made you have this argument. Your claim will also become much stronger and have more meaning when you put your response to their statement before you talk about what it means to you. Also when I write essays I never really thought about the “they” in the paper and how it doesn’t have to be from an article you found or someone’s famous speech, it could be from anyone. I always just assumed it had to be from a quote in an article or something someone had stated in an article. This chapter was very helpful for me and I am going to use some of the templates in my own writing to help myself get better at arguments and responses to what other people say in their writing.
Journal 6:
Peer Review
Journal 7:
The global comments/suggestions that I found best from my peers were that I needed to start my paper with a hook to catch the readers. I just started out talking about the “Food for Thought” article but they told me that I should try to write something about food first and what it means to me before i get into talking about the article. They also told me that I should explain what Soylent is, in my introduction so they know what the rest of my paper will be about.
The best global comments/suggestions that I gave my peers were probably trying to relate food to their lives and how being in college might have changed how they feel towards food. I also believe maybe acknowledging Rhineharts side of the story and how he may feel about food would be a good way to see both sides.
Some things that weren’t captured on the page but came up during the discussion were quotes. Some of us had a bunch of quotes and others didn’t have any so we talked about how many we should have. Other things were word choice and maybe using a thesaurus if you have been repeating words.
I wish that we talked about the barclays formula and if people could tell where we had it in our papers.
This peer review session was much more helpful than any peer review I had in highschool. I think it helped more being able to comment on their drafts and then talking about it because then we already had things written down and it was easier to go back and talk about each paper. It was also much more helpful that people were honest and wanted to make other peoples work the best it can be.
Journal 8:
When I was revising my Soy You Have a Favorite Meal Essay the parts that I revised most were probably my word choice and my introduction paragraph. I used the same words multiple times throughout certain paragraphs and it sounded very repetitive, so I went back and used a thesaurus to find other words that would fit. I also wanted to fix my introduction and make a hook to catch the reader’s attention. After having someone look over my other essay and reading other people’s papers made me realize that catching the reader’s attention at the beginning of the paper makes them want to read more of it. Drafting and revising in college is a lot better than in highschool. In highschool I don’t think I changed many of my drafts that much and I just assumed a first draft meant handing in a paper that wasn’t completely done. Looking at other papers and seeing how other people wrote theirs made me want to change things in my paper. I think my approach to this project fits well with the expectations for the class. I have never been a really good writer and I used to hate writing and would do the minimum. In this class it made me want to learn how to write better and do everything that would help me achieve that. I tried to go back into my papers and fix them after learning about the little things that would help it sound smoother and better. Teachers at my highschool didn’t really teach us much about writing and all I knew about was the standard 5 paragraph essay. I also barely wrote peer reviewed and revised papers in highschool so coming into college and learning all the new things about writing has already helped me become a better writer.
Journal 9:
Page 4, Paragraph 2: I agree with Vogt talking about his book, “Road to Survival”. If the world’s population does increase to 10 billion then there will be a lot of problems. That will probably be pretty close to the carry capacity just because of the amount of food that people will need to survive off of. Species will begin to go extinct and it will ruin the ecosystem. If people start to try to produce more meat or plant more crops, it will probably just end up affecting the Earth even more. The runoff from the fertilizers will begin to contaminate the water which will affect the availability of drinking water. Although there might be options for making enough food and produce I’m not sure how long it will last for and if it will continue to work as the population grows.
Page 11, Paragraph 2: I agree with this idea of genetically modifying rice to be more efficient and faster growing by making it have C4 photosynthesis but I believe it might be very hard to do. On page 13, paragraph 2, Jane Langdale, a molecular geneticist says that all of the genes would have to be activated by the C4 photosynthesis in order for it to work. This would probably end up costing more money then the outcome that they will receive. If it doesn’t end up working then they would have wasted a ton of money genetically modifying something when they could have come up with an easy, cheaper alternative. Although if it does work then it would be worth all of the work they put in to make C4 rice, and it would produce much more rice than what is being produced now.
Page 18, Paragraph 3: I agree with this paragraph and how it is up to our generation to think about the future and what needs to happen. If we don’t do anything or start thinking about ways to fulfill the needs of people when the population reaches 10 billion, then there will be devastating effects. People having jobs in agriculture has decreased immensely since 1930 which means that there are less farms so that the ones left need to get bigger to make up for the amount there is. There are definitely more alternatives of crops to grow, like cassava which produces more calories per acre than wheat. Even though many countries don’t use it, it could become something available in future years that might help towards affluence.
Journal 10:
Page 9, Paragraph 4: I agree with this paragraph talking about cooking shows. In the beginning of the article Pollan talked about how in the 1900’s cooking shows were live, you could see exactly what people were making, how they made it and how long it took. Many mothers would try to make what they were showing on tv because it was easy to follow and being able to see someone cook something makes other people more confident in making it. Nowadays cooking shows are just meant to get your attention and make you want to continue watching. They have cooking show competitions where you don’t really know what they are making until the end of the show because they have 60 minutes to rush around and prepare a somewhat satisfying meal. I believe that people probably only watch these shows because they are entertaining, not because of the cooking.
Page 14, Paragraphs 2 and 3: I agree and disagree with these paragraphs. I understand that people are busy with working and their schedules throughout the day, but I don’t think that the rate of cooking should have decreased that much because of people being busy. Although the amount of women cooking may have decreased, I believe that many men have begun to cook for their families. Normally they do the cooking on the grill for dinner and especially for gatherings and parties. Paragraph 3 is talking about how ever since women were allowed to get jobs in the workforce that cooking has declined which does make sense because cooking was mostly all women would do, but allowing women to work shouldn’t have made the rate of cooking go down by that much. People should still have time in their day to make a few meals and sit down with their family.
Page 18, Paragraph 4: I agree with this paragraph a lot. Pollan talks about a study that was done that showed how the rise in food preparation outside of people’s homes has led to an increase in obesity. I agree with this because when people are in a hurry or don’t have much money, the only way to satisfy their hunger is to go to a drive thru and get unhealthy fast food. It is much more convenient for people to go to a gas station and grab some food then to go home and make themselves a meal. It is much harder for people to eat healthy while going out to eat because the majority of the healthy food is 10x more expensive that any other food. People don’t have to waste time out of their day to make food when they can just quickly run into a store and grab premade meals or snacks to fulfill themselves throughout the day.
Journal 11:
This chapter was really helpful in explaining how you should talk about what other people are saying first and then put your own ideas and respond to what they said. It helped me realize that when I’m writing about something I should put other people’s ideas before mine and then explain how my ideas are similar or different than theirs. When you talk about other people’s ideas, it allows the reader to know more about the topic of your paper and what you are trying to write about just by reading about someone else’s experience. It gives people the ability to know what the rest of your paper is going to be about by reading about other people’s experiences first. The templates that they show on page 23 are really helpful and give you an idea about how to start when you explain what other people have said. The templates also help you explain how you feel about someone else’s belief and how to disagree or agree with it. It is also very important to acknowledge both sides of the argument especially if you disagree with what someone else is saying. This chapter will help me with my future writing especially where I have to compare things or bring in other people’s ideas.
Journal 12:
The two essays that I am writing about are Mann and Pollans. It took me awhile to get started with this paper because I couldn’t figure out how to compare the two papers or write about them together. I had a really hard time understanding Mann’s article because there was just so much in the paper and it was hard to pick a side which is probably another reason why I am having a harder time bringing his essay into my own. Once I started writing my introduction paragraph and explaining what each of the papers are about, it made me realize that some things could flow between the two. I had to think about Pollan’s essay and how we cook less and eat out more and Manns essay about how we are going to support the population with food once it reaches 10 billion could be related. I think I need to keep going back into the texts and breaking them up to figure out which pieces are relevant and which ones I don’t need in my writing. I am going to talk to Vic later today about my paper and see if she has any ideas on how I could compare the two because I am still a little stuck on writing a whole paper about the two essays. I need to figure out what my body paragraphs are going to be about and then that might help me filter out what quotes and what parts I should talk about in each paragraph.
