Lunsford Chapter 16- Evidence

If you’re writing an argument, you should always have evidence to back it up. College students, I have a question for you. What is evidence and how do you use it in an argument? The authority or credibility of evidence depends on what you’re writing about. Evidence gets stronger or weaker as your argument progresses just like us humans that get healthier or less healthy the next day. Also, evidence should be relevant with the time and place in where you make your argument. Let’s use an example of misusing of evidence from Lunsford. A person talked about using George Washington’s revolutionary military tactics in our modern military to be more effective. Now, is this evidence making sense to you? The evidence is irrelevant because the time and place is completely different. The ways the people fight today aren’t what it was in the revolutionary war. So, you have to have evidence that complements your argument.

There are so many sources that offer every bits of evidence for an argument. So, how do we use evidence? First of all, there are two different types of evidence; firsthand evidence and secondhand evidence. Firsthand evidence comes from research you did on our own or with groups. Firsthand evidence is not from the internet, but observations, interviews, surveys and questionnaires, experiments, and personal experience. You can use firsthand evidence to enhance your argument; however it may sometimes be one-sided because it sometimes is based on your opinion or perspective, not facts. Observations offer good, solid evidence, but it would only tell from your perspective. Interviews are effective because they’re best firsthand evidence for an argument paper since you would get direct answers from the person you interviews. Surveys and Questionnaires are usually used when you need numbers to solidify your argument. Surveys and questionnaires are the best sources if you need numbers. Experiments are great for scientific arguments because well, how can you write an effective scientific argument if you don’t have any evidence of experiments. Personal experience can be powerful evidence if you use it well. However, it’s your own experience and can be rendered ineffective easily because there are no foundations to sponsor your evidence.

Secondhand evidence is another type of evidence and they’re better than firsthand evidence because they come from solid sources such as books, articles, etc. Main sources of secondhand evidence come from the library and the internet. Libraries, what do I need to say about them? Libraries have everything from A to Z and now, they’re available on the computers! Speaking of computers, the internet has vast, limitless sources anywhere, but you have to be careful because some sources aren’t dependable.

So, how do you use evidence effectively in your argument? First, you have to consider the audience because you need to think about how your evidence would have an impact on the audience. Also, you should build up your claim with pieces of evidence to make the content better and the important of all, arrange your evidence. Arranging evidence by the strength (weakest to strongest) or time forces the readers to continue to read all the way.

My evaluation of Pan's Labyrinth

Pan’s Labyrinth is perhaps one of the best foreign films ever made because it was viewed by many college universities including Gallaudet University for academic works. Great authors make great films and great films have influence on the society in some ways. Del Toro presented hidden meanings in Pan’s Labyrinth and they were symbols of Del Toro’s beliefs and values. College universities had college students to watch the movie and write about the hidden meanings they found in the movie.

Indeed, Pan’s Labyrinth is perhaps one of the best foreign films ever made. Why so? Well, let’s see here. Pan’s Labyrinth won three academy awards; Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, and Best Makeup and you would know why if you watched it. Though, the awards would not happen if the movie didn’t attract lot of movie-goers. I often wonders, “what made Pan’s Labyrinth an excellent movie and how?” The answer lies in the movie. When people were watching Pan’s Labyrinth, they probably were into the movie or disliked it so far because of the slow start it had. Now, at some point they probably felt there was something different or as you prefer a better term, odd with the movie as it progresses on. Perhaps that’s why some people liked the movie because it was different from normal fairy tales.

Pan’s Labyrinth was unconventional as just as Del Toro wanted it. Why was it different? Well, in the movie, the cinematic lights and the mood remained the same from the very start to the end. Also, it’s quite dark for a fairy tale and did not have a happy ending unlike an original fairy tale would have. I could list more reasons to why the movie was unconventional when compared to many other fairy tale movies. To put it in layman’s terms, Del Toro was showing his sense or value of disobedience in the movie.

Also, Pan’s Labyrinth was well known for its unoriginal ways that college universities had their students to analyze the movie and find the hidden meanings behind it. Like myself, I was assigned to analyze the movie and find the hidden meanings and why was it significant. Del Toro wanted us to recognize them and realize the significance of it. For instance, there were many signs of disobedience in this movie such as the doctor’s obvious disobedience toward Captain Vidal when he put the beaten prisoner to sleep against his orders. As for hidden disobedience, you can say that Ofelia’s mother was somewhat disobedient toward Captain Vidal as well when she said, “I would not be more disappointed than Captain Vidal,” to Ofelia when Ofelia arrived late for dinner. There were religious parallels in this movie as well like the significance of Jesus’ crucifix on the hands and the pale old man with eyes on his hands.

Pan’s Labyrinth was filled with so many hidden meanings that it was quite enjoying for intellectual people. Pan’s Labyrinth stood out among the movies because it was completely different and considered unconventional when compared to other fairy tale movies. Perhaps, that’s why it was a great movie. As for me, I just enjoyed it because it was the opposite and I enjoyed analyzing the meanings behind the scenes in the movie.

Purdue OWL website

What is Purdue’s OWL? First of all, the anagram stands for Online Writing Lab and Purdue is well known for its literary resources and information on academic writing styles. Many students and professors worldwide use this website for assistance for their English classes. College students like I use this website mainly for instructions on APA citation. I highly recommends Purdue’s OWL website to all college students to use it because it’s very helpful when you need help on essays or a rhetorical analysis. Also, if you want to avoid plagiarism and wants proper citation, OWL has many citation formats like APA to offer.

In class, I have learned a variety of writing styles and how they apply to academic papers. We discussed about how each of these styles has an impact on academic papers and how they connect to the audience. For example, we discussed about rhetorical analysis and how would we use it in certain situations like trying to persuade the audience to look at it from a different view of point. Also, we discussed about the styles we use in arguments and the key points to use in arguments. I fervently recalled class discussions when I’m writing an academic paper and was able to use it as one of my tools. However, I had several weaknesses in my academic writing skills and my feedbacks indicated it.

In class, I used a book; Lunsford to study and research the writing styles and how we use it in an academic paper. It contained information and instructions for these styles. I was able to effectively absorb information from Lunsford and had an understanding of the material presented in Lunsford. Basically, I’m able to use materials contained in Lunsford and class discussions as my tools when I’m writing an academic paper.

However, my light bulb came on full powered when I looked around on Purdue’s OWL website. It had abundant information on many literary styles or instructions on literary skills we, college students use in our academic papers. I completely understood how to properly write a rhetorical analysis or a proper argument with the backing. OWL was truly effective and very elaborative on the material presented on the website. I finally came to an understanding of subjects my class and Dr. Wood have discussed about and also material written in Lunsford. OWL is really a magnificent academic source for all college students and teachers to use for their English classes.

Pan's Labyrinth

Wow! Pan's Labyrinth was certainly one of the oddest movies I have ever seen in my life, but it was an excellent movie. Plus, it’s a foreign movie and I rarely like these kinds of movie! But, Del Toro did really great and I can see that he worked so hard on this movie. So, I can see why he said the movie nearly killed him and he lost forty five pounds of fat from making the movie. He wanted people to see the meanings behind the scenes and he wanted to express his meanings of certain things that were shown in the movie. You can have so many different meanings in a scene and nobody’s wrong. He’s very creative and sly in some ways. Also, he completely broke the ‘golden film rules’ in Pan’s Labyrinth such as having a unfortunate ending in a fantasy-like movie or having the mood of lights remaining the same for the rest of the movie. Basically, Pan’s Labyrinth is all about disobedience.
I thought the movie was very deep when you try to analyze it in pieces. For instance, Del Toro showed religious parallels in this movie, like in the ending, when Ofelia the main character died and then rised again in her kingdom as an immortal being just like Jesus did. Jesus also died and was reborn again as an immortal. Also, the monster with eyes on his hands also depicts the crucifixion of Jesus and his hands. The setting of Pan’s Labyrinth was in Spain and Spain’s official language is Catholic. So, Del Toro perhaps used these religious parallels in the movie for that purpose and to show his perspective of it.
He also showed many forms of obedience in this movie, theatrical and social. In theatrical sense, Pan’s Labyrinth was a fairy tale, yet it’s very dark and gloomy. There were no happy endings in this movie like fairy tales normally have. The fairies were not bright at all and ate like savages. In normal fairy tales, you always see bright fairies and they’re clean. Also, they’re there to help while the fairies in the movie lied to Ofelia, the protagonist of this movie. The lights never changed at all from the beginning to the end because the mood remained the same. In normal movies, you normally see the lights change when the mood of the movie changes. But in this movie, it was always dark and the rain never stopped.
Now, in a sense of society, there are so many meanings of disobedience because it completely depends on a person’s experience and values he or she holds. The Faun told Ofelia to obey him all the time and would be rewarded if she accordingly does so. However, when the Faun told her he would need the blood of an innocent, he meant her brother. If she obeys him, she would have her wish. In disobedience, she refused to kill her own brother and chose him over her desire to escape the life she lives in. Thus, she disobeyed because it was the right thing to do so. I believe Del Toro is trying to say that disobedience is not always wrong, but it is sometimes a right thing to do in certain situations.
Well, it was very interesting when I had to analyze the movie, instead of just watching the whole movie. I really realized there were hidden meanings behind Pan’s Labyrinth and I probably won’t recognize it if I was merely watching the movie like I normally do.

Redo Rhetorical Anyalsis

Video Games Affect the Brain—for Better and Worse
By Douglas A. Gentile, Ph.D.

Dr. Douglas Gentile is the director of Media Research Lab in the psychology department at Iowa State University. While he’s there at the lab, he studies and conducts researches on the mass media’s effect on children and adults. He’s a co-author of Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy (2007, Oxford University Press). He’s well qualified in this area and effectively researches on many factors that may have an effect on children and adults.

In this article, In respect of fairness for the readers, he listed both the pros and cons of consequences for children who play video games. Therefore, he was not biased, but instead he gave his professional opinion based on facts from studies and researches; logos. He’s very logical since he used facts and also used others’ ideas and data to further cement his main points in his article like this quote from Nature that was listed in his article, “One neuroscience study, published in Nature, showed that playing action video games can improve visual attention to the periphery of a computer screen.”

I decided to choose this article because I am a fan of video games and I have always get involved in many discussions concerning video games and why is it good or bad for you. I strongly believed that video games aren’t really bad for us if we carefully manage our time or minimize our addiction to video games. So, I was able to connect successfully to this article because I’m an avid gamer and I knew the consequences of playing video games.

To state the pros in the heated issue about video games, he used his and outside resources to state, that educational games are good for your brains and also may help strengthen your working memory if it has lot of repetitions in video games. Also, he said low-violence activity and pro-social games has demonstrated that it was more helpful to players who was able to learn the concept of teamwork or improved their teamwork skills.

He stated the cons by using resources from respected scientists and researchers. The “addiction” to video games had negative consequences as well. Video games were linked to obesity, isolation, poor academic performances, and also may cause a distortion between reality and fantasy. In the researches shown in his article, high violence games have caused the players to be more aggressive in real life. Also, experienced players have been desensitized to violence in video games, while new players would experience high emotional reactions to the intensity of violence in the games. He implied that it’s not the games that really affects the players, but the way players play them and how they react to it.

I felt that this article by Dr. Gentile have opened many parents’ minds to the aspect of video games and let them realize that video games are also good for the children. I certainly disagree with the cons because I never really experienced these symptoms or consequences of video games. However, I was able to comprehend the risks of playing video games because my future kids maybe will play video games as well. He used logos to execute and clarify his main point of his article and prove that video games is just another form of entertainment that influences us. However, I’ve noticed that he seemed to neglect the exposure of violence games to age groups especially kids under 10 years old. Video games can have serious impact on the youth whether its violence or social games online. Violence can cause young kids to be more aggressive and their behavior may easily be copied from the video games. The kids are susceptible to the actions they see every day and would have an effect on them in the future. Online games can be beneficial for the kids, but it can also be dangerous. Child predators could stalk young kids and easily fool them into telling them where the kids live and what’s their address. But, they also can learn many things from online friends because many people have different perspectives and the kids can learn from it.

http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=22800

My Rhetorical Analysis

Video Games Affect the Brain—for Better and Worse
By Douglas A. Gentile, Ph.D.

Dr. Douglas Gentile is the director of Media Research Lab in the psychology department at Iowa State University. While he’s there at the lab, he studies and conducts researches on the mass media’s effect on children and adults. He’s a co-author of Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy (2007, Oxford University Press). He’s well qualified in this area and effectively researches on many factors that may have an effect on children and adults. In this article, he listed both the pros and cons of consequences for children who play video games. Therefore, he was not being biased, but instead he gave his professional opinion and wrote them based on reasons and facts; logos. He also used others’ ideas to further cement the main points of his article like this quote that was listed in his article, “One neuroscience study, published in Nature, showed that playing action video games can improve visual attention to the periphery of a computer screen.” I decided to choose this article because I am a fan of video games and I have always get involved in many discussions concerning video games and why is it good or bad for you. I strongly believed that video games aren’t really bad for us if we carefully manage our time or minimize our addiction to video games.

To state the pros in the heated issue about video games, he used his and others researches to state, that educational games are good for your brains and also may help strengthen your working memory if it has lot of repetitions in video games. Also, he said low-violence activity and pro-social games has demonstrated that it was more helpful to players who was able to learn the concept of teamwork or improved their teamwork skills.
He also stated the cons by using resources from respected scientists and researchers. The “addiction” to video games had negative consequences as well. Video games were linked to obesity, isolation, poor academic performances, and also may cause a distortion between reality and fantasy. In the researches shown in his article, high violence games have caused the players to be more aggressive in real life. Also, experienced players have been desensitized to violence in video games, while new players would experience high emotional reactions to the intensity of violence in the games.

I felt that this article by Dr. Gentile have opened many parents’ minds to the aspect of video games and let them realize that video games are also good for the children. I certainly disagree with the cons because I never really experienced these symptoms or consequences of video games. However, I was able to comprehend the risks of playing video games because my future kids maybe will play video games as well. He used logos to execute and clarify his main point of his article and prove that video games is just another form of entertainment that influences us.

http://www.dana.org/news/cerebrum/detail.aspx?id=22800

List of Things I believe in

• "pay it forward"
• unique
• Intelligence- everybody is intelligent in their own way
• adventurous
• determination
• live, love, laugh
• work ethnic
• it's never too late
• we are part of something bigger
• persistence

Nafsi in Lunsford

In her commentary, I believe Azar Nafisi is trying to say that everybody has a connection to each other even if they have different beliefs or differences. She believed that all human beings have an unique connection that is within us. In addition, she was implying that empathy in many situations may help you or other people because the more empathy is used, more people will empathize. Who knows? Maybe it could stop any undesired events from happening such as wars or crimes that was committed in vengeance.

She used examples of empathy from Huckleberry Finn when Huck didn’t follow his religious beliefs and viewed Jim, a runaway slave as a human being. Despite his religious belief of going to hell because he befriended a runaway slave, he preferred to suffer than to lose Jim because Jim was his best friend. This loving, motivational, touching scene reminded her of a similar experience she had while she was at Tehran University. She argued about empathy based on reason and facts because she talked about her experience at Tehran University and how it is similar to the scene in Huckleberry Finn. First, she used the scene from Huckleberry Finn to give the readers an idea before describing her experience and how her two students who had huge differences with her still supported her when she was expelled from Tehran University. In one of two students’ words, he said, “Remember your own lectures on Huck Finn? Let’s just say, he is not the only one who can risk going to hell!” The similarity of Nafisi’s experience and the scene from Huckleberry Finn symbolizes empathy Nafisi was emphasizing about in her commentary.

I think Nafisi wrote this commentary because of her experience and also the knowledge of many bizarre situations where empathy was shared unexpectedly. She wrote these arguments based on emotions. It was emotional because she felt empathy from her two nasty students when she was expelled. Also, she was able to use this experience and explained it through a scene from Huckleberry Finn and she valued it very much. Therefore, she believed that everyone has feelings and can empathize with everyone else in spite of differences such as religion or disputes. She also argued based on character and values because why wouldn’t she write about empathy if she doesn’t value it? She believed empathy is one of the most important qualities a human should have. In her commentary, she stated that only through empathy, pain that is shared by a person can become real and can help lessen the pain if people empathize people with pain.

GSR 102-Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue,” in Lunsford al. p. 804.

"Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan was about the author's mother struggling with her language ability since English is her second language. In these situations like this, deaf people and hearing people are no different from each other because English is their second language next to their primary language. Amy said she understood her mother's broken English most of the time while her friends can only understand about half of what she said. This implies that Amy grew up with her mother and have gotten used to her english and it's similar to us as well. Deaf people who has English as their second language has some form of "broken english" and their parents have gotten used to it because they lived together for many years. It is the same thing with Deaf people using their "deaf" voices only people who knows them for a long time can understand, while other people can't understand them.

I believe what the author is trying to say here is that in America, "perfect" english is mandatory to the Americans and they acknowledge people through their language ability. It's pretty a fact since I've noticed hearing people, even deaf people avoid or doesn't recognize people with their limited languge ability. This dilemma proves the idea of arguments based on character and is language ability a quality that adds to the character? Illiterate? Incompetence? Perhaps so.

I understand the author's anger and frustration about her mother because I was in the same boat with her too. Sometimes, I get embarassed when some deaf people with limited english I know went up to hearing peole and handed them a piece of paper of what they wanted. I often thought they were bemused, or didn't even understand what the paper said and they might have their first impression of deaf people. Their first impression could be, "Oh, deaf people doesn't know how to write??" Also, this impression of deaf people may impact the whole deaf community because most of the time, a deaf person usually represents the deaf community.

I think Amy Tan wrote a great story about her mother and she exposed the difficulties people with their limited language abilities had to go through here in America.

Respond to question #2

When I want to inform someone, I let them know in a clear and convenient way. Information is a valuable way to gain knowledge. I'll give you an example. I'm a football player and I need to know the plays. I would need information about the plays if I am to play in a game later. So, I would inform that football player about the plays and it allows him to benefit from this and use it well. How am I blogging about my respond if I didn't get information? Dr. Wood informed me to blog about this and so I knew what to do. After all, knowledge is power.

To convince people is like trying to change their mind about a thing they're dead set on. If it was I that needs to convince people, I would bring hard, cold facts, evidence and strong points to be able to change their minds. It's like being a lawyer when you have to convince the judge to prove that your client is not guilty. I would bring out discussions with people and give out their own opinion and why theirs right and mine is wrong. How do you do that? Convince them.

Ah, exploration. What moves me, you, us to explore? Perhaps it's curiosity that drives us to have the desire to know what, when, why, where, or how or determination to uncover the secrets behind a door. When I explore, it's mainly curiosity because I want to know why do people do that or like it. I want to be in other's shoes and know how they feel.

Decisions are made with convincing myself and arguments. Decisions are made every day, small or big. Small decisions are daily like what to wear, jeans or shorts? polo or T-shirt? Big decisions i make is like picking classes, deciding colleges like I decided to attend Gallaudet University. Decisions can be changed with peruasion and arguments. They can be convinced to change their decisions.

I don't really meditate or pray since I'm not really religious. I do believe in God, but that's basically it. The only times I meditate or pray is before serious games like football or basketball. I think meditation and praying are methods to calm our minds and get rid of stress that is upon us.

GSR 102-01 Reaction/Reflection Blog Introduction

Wow, this is very exciting as this is my first time with blogs. I've never blogged in my whole life until now! Writing is not really a big deal to me, but it is mandatory since I am leaning toward majoring in history. I really love history and I always get fascinated by old stories, myths, or legends. Okay, I believe I should introduce myself now.

I was born in Wisconsin and I live only fifteen minutes from Milwaukee. I live in South Milwaukee and yes, it is a city. Many people thought I meant by living in the south side of Milwaukee and i had to explain that South Milwaukee is actually a city! Wisconsin is a wonderful state to live in because it's convenient to live in because there's almost no natural disasters at all! I was born deaf and it was caused by a disease my mother had while she was pregnant with me. So, she passed it on to me and caused me to become deaf. I'm the only deaf family member of my whole family, so you can imagine how boring thanksgiving was! I have two sisters and both are in college. Andrea, my oldest sister is twenty two and she's a graduate at University of Minnesota and my other sister, Jessica is nineteen and is a sophmore at Winona State in Minnesota. I guarantee that nobody at Gallaudet University nor people who live on campus has the same name as me because my first name is very unique. Maybe, this will help you in figuring out who I am. If you want a hint, my name is same as a city in Texas. My father named me after his childhood street where he was raised on and I still don't know the reason behind it. hmm, I grew up going to public schools and I was practically the only deaf person in my mainstreamed schools, heck even in my hometown! After I graduated from middle school, I decided to enroll at Wisconsin School for the Deaf. It was a tough decision to make considering I'm a hour away from home and I never had any daily contact with deaf people. The reason I made this decision is because I wanted to be with people that is like me, deaf. I didn't want to continue to be known as the "deaf guy" in public schools. I wanted everyone to recognize me as who I am, not my disability. Anyway, I graduated from Wisconsin School for the Deaf and I was the valedictorian of my class of 2009.

Let's see. I love to play! I practicaly play anything from sports to video games! I'm always up for a challenge. I'm a shy person, but once you get to know me, I'm a very friendly person and outgoing as well! :) well I think that's all I can say about myself so far!