The Process of Revision

My experiences with the process of revision has greatly impacted the way I view my own writing and style. I have always viewed revision as a way of changing or adding something to what I had originally written. The difference between editing and revising, to me, was that editing was fixing grammar mistakes and revising was actually adding new words or sentences or even paragraphs and restructuring the paragraphs, if needed. Since taking English 101, I have developed and enhanced my revising skills and techniques. I now revise my essays thoroughly and I understand the importance of revision in developing a concise and coherent paper. I now revise a paper many times and send it to many different people who I trust in which I can get reasonable and useful feedback from to further enhance the quality of my paper. I used to think my writing was the best it could possibly be after revising my paper by just myself and not having it peer reviewed. However, I now view my writing as constantly up for improvement and I recognize the important peer reviewing has in developing a solid paper. I also view my style differently after it has been peer reviewed because I have more opinions on the way I write instead of my own opinion which, of course, rarely sees faults in a particular style of writing in which I wrote myself.

April 13th Blog

The first source I chose was an online dissertation titled, ‘Are perceptions of media bias an effective shortcut?”, and was written by Glen Smith for the Washington State University Department of Political Science. The dissertation describes how the media uses its own bias’ to persuade the viewers, which in this case are Americans, to one particular viewpoint or another. He found that people perceive bias based on a particular slant in the news. For example, people might view Fox news as bias for Republicans, since they have a majority of conservative opinions on their primetime news shows (Smith 34). Glen states that people’s perceptions on particular subjects are not very easily persuaded with bias if they already have a strong perception on a subject. Once people have been exposed to one form of bias for a very long time, it can be very difficult for other forms of media to persuade that individual to change his or her perception to another. This shows how bias’ in the media can strongly affect a person’s ideology for a very long period of time.

The second source I chose was a book titled, ‘Where do you draw the line?’, by Victor Cline. The book delves into the topic of pornography and violence in the media and the media censorship of the two topics. The book states that, “censorship limits the student’s education. It leaves him with a distorted and jaundiced view of society. It suggests that we do not trust his judgment.” (Cline 6) But where do you draw the line with censorship versus freedom of speech, taking into effect the various laws concerning pornography and violence in the media? Cline suggests that we development “an independent monitoring agency to provide regular reports on the level of violence in television entertainment” (Cline 289). While this would likely serve as a decent tool for parents to scope out the television programs which have the most violence and thereby block their children from watching the high level of inappropriate content, it would not totally solve the problem depending on how well the government agency could detect and notify people of potential violent programs. I think the current television rating system and television rating blockers are good enough tools for parents to monitor the content their children can view on the television.

Works Cited:

Cline, Victor. Where do you draw the line?. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1974. 358. Print.

Smith, Glen. "Are perceptions of media bias an effective shortcut?." (2009): 144. Web. 12 Apr 2010.

Time Wise Group Essay

The topic of racism is a delicate one in American society. America’s history of slavery and race related conflicts has desensitized us from seeing the subtle effects of racism that have big impacts on people of color. Racism in America is the same as white privilege which is usually defined by skin color (TIME WISE). Racism is the discrimination of others because of the color of their skin, this act is often an unconscious intolerance that has become standard due to a country based on racial separation. The inequality between white people and people of color has become prominent enough to effect the housing market, the job industry and the daily lives of individuals living in America.

Tim Wise, an antiracism activist from the South, explains the motivation behind whites discrimination against others to create a better opportunity for themselves “If people of color are discriminated against in employment, then that’s more employment opportunities for whites” (TIME WISE). This idea fuels the inequality between whites and those of color in the job industry and creates the want for whites to put others down. Tim Wise relates this idea to ‘pressure to perform’ that is placed on both whites and blacks, though intelligence is most often ascribed to race, besides in the case of whites. “We whites are able to be as incompetent or mediocre as we want and never have our mediocrity ascribed to our race” (TIM WISE).

This article helps me realize that there is not only privilege as a white compared to people of color but also as an American compared to the rest of the world. The similarities that whites and Americans have compared to blacks and the rest of the world are very intriguing. Just as whites have privilege to many jobs, Americans have privilege to a lot of food. Furthermore, that Americans might be hesitant to give up their advantage of easy access to food so that the rest of the world can eat. Also since whites have more opportunities for jobs and housing it leads to higher rates of poverty in people of color and this can affect their choices for foods. Being a white middle class student myself, it is hard for me to understand what it means to have to only eat fast food since that only what they can afford. I have always had the privilege of being able to go to a grocery store and get vegetables and fruits without much regard to price.

Overall Tim Wise’s interview was very beneficial to me. Not only did it help me understand the truth behind racisms but the privileges that go along with it. That a job not allowed to a person of color is another available for a white. Also that I need to be aware of my surrounding and constantly watching out for racism and privilege so that I can help society change. As well as the fact that there will always be people who don’t want to give up their advantage and just want to keep things as they are. Also this will greatly help me improve my paper 3, since it has helped me realize that we as Americans have a privilege over the rest of the world. This article has opened my eyes to the impact of racism and has helped me see that silence is not the answer but to spread the word of equality to help society change

Works Cited
Cook, David. "By The Color Of Their Skin." The Sun (2009): 4-12. Print.

Readings March 30th

Since coming to Washington State University, and for English 101 in particular, I use the online library resources to find sources for my papers. At first the online library database was a bit confusing but after the lab at the library explaining the system and being exposed to a basic walk through of it, I found it very helpful to find a wide variety of sources on several particular topics. I specifically use the Griffin catalog and the WorldCat resources to find scholarly resources for my papers in English 101. I find Worldcat to be most useful because of the similarity of the search with Google and the ease of filtering content to find exactly what I'm looking for. After finding a few sources that I deem helpful I typically read the abstract of each source and check to see if it was a peer reviewed, scholarly article or journal and then narrow my list of sources down to fit exactly what I want and what I think will work best in my paper. A peer reviewed article is typically the best article or source that one can find for writing papers because it has usually been written by a credibly person, such as a professor or expert in a particular field, and has then been dissected and analyzed by a wide range of knowledgeable people in the field of writing. This makes these sources very useful and strengthens the validity of one's paper. Another bonus of finding sources using the Washington State University online library database is that the citation of most sources you find are already posted on the page of the abstract if the article or journal. This makes writing papers much more efficient because it cuts down on the time it takes to write a proper citation.

Norman Borlaug

Norman Borlaug has some very interesting ideas for agricultural awareness. I think that he rightly deserves his Nobel Prize. His view of genetically modified foods are backed up by the idea of feeding the entire world. From a humanitarian perspective, genetically modified foods could perhaps one day stop world hunger, which was one of Norman Borlaug's main goals. Even though some people think genetically modified foods could turn you into Frankenstein, it seems to me that there is far too much concern over these artificial foods. There is no way a food can alter you're DNA or something and turn you into some monster with two heads like some 'health' cults believe. We should, however, be a little cautious about what genetically modified foods can do to people in the long run. I think that these type of artificial foods should be thoroughly tested for many years to rule out the likelihood of adverse side effects in the long run to people's health. Norman Borlaug was a trendsetter and a highly ingenious man and I think that his ideas for aiding in preventing world hunger should be continued and not forgotten.

Chapter 15, 18, 19, 20

While reading this last section of The Omnivore's Dilemma, I found chapter 15 to be the most interesting out of all of them. It seemed very fitting for Pollan to end his adventures with a meal made entirely from scratch. His quest to hunt and gather a well rounded three course meal was very respectable by Pollan. I agree with him that hunting and gathering has no chance of becoming a viable way of life for humans in this day in age. The times of mobile hunter and gatherer societies are long gone and agriculture has took it's place to feed the sheer amount of people that are on this planet.

I also found it funny how he couldn't eat the meal he had prepared because we was too worried abut if the mushrooms he picked were poisonous. I guess all the negative things parents say about mushrooms actually do help us sometimes, as it did to Pollan in this case. Pollan's effort to prepare a well rounded meal entirely from "scratch" was noble, however, I would have found it much more satisfying if Pollan had manned up and ate the food he found anyway. If the food was bad, he could have just wrote about his experiences in the hospital. It would have made it more interesting and satisfying, in my opinion.

Omnivore's Dilemma - Chapter 16

Chapter 16 was very interesting to me on many levels. The chapter starts off talking about a psychologist named Rozin who studied food behaviors in rats. He was looking at how rats use innate defenses against poisonous plants such as only taking a small nibble of an unknown food and waiting to see if it would get a stomachache. I found this very interesting because I thought rats would have very poor memories but it turns out they can remember which foods caused them turmoil and it is ingrained with them for the rest of their lives. All omnivores such as rats used various techniques for identifying possibly eatable foods. However, once humans came along with our invention of fire, the defenses of plants stood no match, and no amount of evolutionary resistance could occur quick enough to counter the new technique of producing fire. I think humans have done a reasonably well job controlling the power of fire. I mean, we haven't destroyed the world, yet.
I also found it found it very important to note that humans are biologically accustomed to digesting meats to gain vital micro-nutrients such as Vitamin B-12, which can only be found naturally in meat, as well as digesting plants for micro-nutrients such as Vitamin C. Because of the fact that humans are omnivorous, it is important that we make sure we kill animals humanely and mindfully. We have such a wide variety of possible foods that I think allows us to be able to take the time and humanely kill the animals we need and harvest them in a wise and appropriate way.