Category: Uncategorized

I read the essay “What Bullets Do to Bodies” by Jason Fagone. He wrote this article on April of 2017 and it was basically about the physical effects that bullet wounds leave on the body even after its been removed. These anecdotes and facts are told in the prospective of trauma surgeons and mainly of Dr. Amy Goldberg. I personally loved this essay; it was very informative and the way that Fagone was able to explain all of the events that were unraveled in his essay were very well written. He made sure to keep all of the details of the shot victims in and even included a few of the victims and they spoke a little of their own personal experience. But it’s also a detailed examination of how bullets devastate human flesh. Fagone conveys the damage and the pain to a degree that is remarkable. What makes this essay so much more unique and interesting is that these are doctors that see shot wounds up close and either save or aren’t able to save a person’s life, speak on wanting to reduce gun violence in this country. Regardless of how detailed and graphic a story can be about a gun violence victim; doctors are what see it all and see the worst. This essay was so effective because it’s so relevant to society at the moment with countless school shootings and just gun violence in general specifically in the U.S. Pro-gun people defend their guns so proudly, but don’t know a single detail of what a bullet can do to a body for the rest of their lives. This essay is different than a typical essay, because there is purpose behind this. This essay projected the message that these doctors have seen so much and regardless of what the patient did, they value their lives even if saving them costs a bit of trauma on that very own doctor.

Wallace began his essay, “Consider the Lobster,” with an easygoing anecdote about his trip to a food festival revolving around lobsters. With the story early on, we all know that the subject of the essay will be on lobsters. Eventually, he shifts from the festivals and focuses solely on lobsters and the way that they’re treated. He begins first and starts off by saying that before lobsters were a luxury food, it was actually for the poor and only those with little money ate lobster. Because this essay was featured in a culinary magazine, the readers were not expecting the type of turn he was going to take once Wallace got about halfway into the essay. He then began the subject of animal cruelty, and the processes the chefs take to kill lobsters. Wallace made sure to be as explicit as possible, without leaving out details. Seemingly without warning, readers are delved into the crazy amount of rhetorical questions that will later then result into of responses from readers. Wallace’s detailing of the various ways in which lobsters are euphemistically “prepared” for cooking — e.g., “Some cooks’ practice is to drive a sharp heavy knife point-first into a spot just above the midpoint between the lobster’s eyestalks” requires the readers to discuss behaviors associated with pain and suffering, but also to make them  wonder why they would eat things not knowing the process of something before you eat it. Personally, reading something as graphic as this was difficult to read, it did upset me and grossed me out reading this. I don’t ever eat lobster, but this lobster story is just one example of the many different terrible treatments done to animals that are regularly eaten. It sparks a sense of guilt because although I know that they are being killed every day, I still eat meat and know that it’s wrong to, but I don’t stop. I assume that is the effect that Wallace wants from the readers, and it worked on me. It must have worked on the majority of the readers because so many people complained about this essay being in Gourmet because it was not “what they signed up for.” 

The title of this text is main claim, to literally consider the lobster. Wallace makes endless points on the suffering behind cooking a lobster. He questions “what ethical convictions do gourmets evolve that allow them not just to eat but to savor and enjoy flesh bases viands?” Wallace points out that experiments have been shown that lobsters can detect changes of only a degree or two in water temperature. He also graphically discusses the process of boiling a lobster, “The lobster will sometimes try to cling to the container’s sides or even to hook it’s claws over the kettle’s rim like a person trying to keep from going over the edge of a roof… Even if you cover the kettle and turn away, you can usually hear the cover rattling and clanking as the lobster tries to push it off.” 

I feel very strongly about this reading, as an animal rights activist and have been contemplating on whether I should become a vegetarian, I respect Wallace a lot for bringing to light such a devastating topic that needs to be talked about. I thought that many parts of this essay were extremely hard to read but were very important. 

Elizabeth Royte wrote an essay called “The Remains of the Night” which spoke the fact that there is a huge amount of littler in the woods that she hikes through very frequently. She posted her essay on the platform Medium, which allows the writer to upload all different kinds of medium alongside like photos, YouTube videos, links and more! She first began to add photos of the location that she was speaking on in the beginning in order to allow the readers to have an image in our heads. Later on, however, when she begins to speak on how her team was posting different posters and flyers about sex, litter, and the effects of waste and the economical impact. By providing images and different types of media on her Medium platform makes everything more effective. Images makes an essay more effective because they help to create pause in text. Nobody wants to read a long, uninterrupted stream of copy, so by adding that it makes the essay a lot easier to read.  They make it easier for your reader to understand what you’re saying. Diagrams or graphics can be priceless when explaining things to the reader, thus working to make your copy much more effective and user-friendly. Pictures keep the reader interested in continuing with the essay. If you’ve just read a paragraph and now there’s a picture with a caption hinting at what your next section is about, it keeps you concerned with learning more. Royte did exactly that, she added a little bit of humor as well to keep her audience engaged. By adding a visual element to an essay adds more credibility, especially since Royte used all of her own images. By providing multiple images within her essay, she was able to make her points a lot more visible and clearly.

This American Life – “The Problem We All Live With”

Stylistic Elements and Research Inspiration

I was assigned to listen to This American Life’s episode called “The Problem We All Live With,” and it was such an important and impactful episode. The way the speaker throughout the whole episode, Nikole Hannah Jones, spoke on the issues on integration, segregation and desegregation was very powerful. A few stylistic elements that my group would like to take for inspiration is to have audio clips play out and then while it’s still playing, begin to speak over it and elaborate more on the context of the audio and share our thoughts on it. Another stylistic element I really enjoyed from the podcast episode that we would like include into ours is cue in the next subject that is to be spoken about in the next section of the podcast. This episode had a lot of research within it, but it was broadcasted very well. They did a lot of interviews with students that attended the schools and were directly affected and journalists, superintendents, and parents to build more credibility and make the podcast a lot more effective. Nikole Hannah Jones is a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. She also did a story about the Normandy schools for Pro Publica. Due to her credibility, she has done countless amounts of research and included data, statistics and cited multiple times the reports done by school districts. 

What were some of its stylistic qualities? How was it organized?

Nina- Heyoon

This podcast started out with an advertisement, which is how the creators of the podcast make income. In the beginning, this man is talking to Roman Mars, the host, about a dream this woman he was seeing had. The dream was them walking through a field and they came across a spaceship and this is interesting because they use sound effects to help the audience to visualize the scene. The structure of this podcast is very constant, including audio clips from when he visited, an interview with the owner, and interviews with the host’s friends to get more insight.   

Aldi- Kitty Genovese 

The podcast title is called “You’re Wrong About,” which is a very funny and light-hearted title. The hosts Michael Hobles and Sarah Marshall introduce the topic of this episode and the misinformation of this story. Their conversation is very casual and humorous. Sarah Marshall is the story teller in this episode telling it to Michael. The structure of this podcast is very flowy and chronological but it just includes the two constant voices of the hosts back and forth. 

Anthony- “Winnie the Pooh” 

The podcast entitled ‘How Old Is Winnie the Pooh?’ goes on to navigate and explore the lore of Winnie the Pooh to discover the exact age of the old bear. The podcast is produced by Every Little Thing and their question began with a guest of theirs, Annie, discussing the debate her family has over the mystery. The podcast structures itself chronologically, which gives a story-esque structure to it as the host begins to put together their evidence. Her resources seem valid, as she went to reliable sources that have strong background knowledge on age, bears, and Pooh lore respectively. 

Lauren – Serial “The Alibi”

Sarah Koenig starts off this episode of Serial with an anecdote about technicalities and the way she has been mulling over one kid for one whole year. She then goes into interviews with kids who were about the main subject’s age at the time.Sarah does a great job navigating through different people’s points of view and interviews with adults and some kids who went to school with them. She is calculated and precise in the way she goes about documenting this crime. 

How did it tell its story?

Aldi

Sarah Marshall is pretty much telling the story the whole time and she is the one finding that facts and the story line on the internet. This podcast is about the story of Kitty Genovese, who was murdered outside of an apartment building in the middle of the night in 1964. The worst part is her body was laying on the floor for a week until someone finally called the police. Because of this horrid act made by regular community neighbors, the term “Bystander Effect” was created when those who are around or passing by someone or something bad happening, the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation. They then segway into speaking on homosexuality, the sexual past of Kitty and certain motives of the murderer.  They made it interesting by making very much a dialogue style. They just explain all of the events that happen in the story.

Nina

The man explains that it is a real place and the sound audio from the day makes it even more realistic. This man is Alex Goldman, who grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan and he was a misfit because he was bored of his small town. The only way you can get to Heyoon is if someone who knew about it took you there and to get there, you have to go over a fence that said “Turn back. This is private property. You are not welcome here for any reason. Please now turn back and leave in peace.” They went over the fence and you have to pass a white house owned by a man, who had many dark rumors surrounding him. There was a path behind the house covered in trees and beyond is a field with something “man made.” They discovered an oddly-shaped structure that had two different signs: one said to soak in the beauty of the structure and the other said to please leave because it is private property. They explain the myths behind the structure saying that it was made for the owner’s daughter, for weddings, stargazing, and many others. The Hayden’s, the owners, said there is no specific reason why it is there and that is just beautiful art. 

Anthony

The host of the show began their search by interviewing Ben Ramey, a professional age guesser at a carnival. When the host revealed the subject in question he immediately jumped to around the age of 80 for Pooh simply based off of the bear’s voice. Next, they spoke to Rae Wynn-Grant, a carnivore ecologist who studies bears for a living. She gave great insights into Pooh’s appearance rather than his voice to give a sound opinion and she also assumed Pooh to be a rather older bear. Finally, the host interviewed Sarah Shea, who has written academic articles about Pooh Bear and is considered a Winnie the Pooh historian. 

Lauren

The episode is about the murder of a high school student in Baltimore, Hae Min Lee, and how the murder was made out to be carried out by one boy, Adnen Syed, who’s been in prison ever since. He claims to have an alibi that puts him nowhere near Have Min, but was falsely accused and had his case thrown on purpose.

 How did it use research? 

Lauren 

Sarah Koenig starts off this episode of Serial with an anecdote about technicalities and the way she has been mulling over one kid for one whole year. She then goes into interviews with kids who were about the main subject’s age at the time. 

 Anthony 

Her knowledge on the subject matter ultimately led them to the answer they searched for, and she did so with textual evidence.

Aldi

Sarah Marshall is pretty much telling the story the whole time and she is the one finding that facts and the story line on the internet. She does fail to site where she grabbed the information, but because it was very casual and they were able to segway from one topic to another, it was not too noticeable.

Nina

The speaker in the podcast makes it sound like an anecdote. they didn’t use many resources and the only active research they did within the episode was finding the owners of the heyoon. 

Here is the link to our first audio recording of the podcast group.

The audio is not too strong, we will need to focus more on perfecting the microphones and that we are heard well.

The first episode of millennial speaks on how the host, Megan Tan, has graduated from college and has become a part of the statistic on millennials being unemployed after they graduate from college. However, this podcast lays out the rest of the show by providing her audience her audience with her backstory on how she got to where she is today, but also what her intentions and hopes are for the future. She want to be successful but she wants her listeners to be in the journey with her as she discovers what she wants. 

Of the cases of authorial misconduct, the worst one was John Lehrer because he simply made quotes out of thin air and also failed to cite sources when writing in his post. The least objectionable was Jonathan Bailey’s post about Chris Anderson because he failed to read the novel and only stated thoughts and opinions from other readers. He could not confirm nor deny the accusations but did a lot of citing his resources. My definition of plagiarism is copying someone else’s work without mentioning where you got it from and take credit for that specific work. Zakaria’s story definitely matches with my definition because he took information and words from a previous article and writer and mirrored the information, copying them almost word or word. Lehrer does not match my definition of plagiarism because he was not stealing any information, he did however make up quotes. The quotes in question either did not exist or were misquotations. Although it is not in my definition of plagiarism, he has jeopardized his role as a journalist by doing such a vile thing. Lastly, the post about Anderson, he did plagiarize from other websites and failed to cite them. Jonathan Bailey, the writer of the post, did a good job including all of his resources and citing who found the information and who was able to find the articles/websites where Anderson took them from.

In the Mystery Show’s, “Belt Buckle,” Starlee Kline spent a good amount of her time trying to investigate who the belt buckle her neighbor found belonged to. The first dead-end she found was trying to find out if Hans Jordi was a chef, the teacher Donna was not sure if he was or wasn’t, so she found a different to find her answer. The second dead-end Kline ran into was when interviewing Sated about Hans being a chef. Sure, she was able to find out additional information, but all the stories he told her were from 1986 and she needed more recent information and stories about Hans, but that led her to find a message about Chef Karl also looking for Chef Hans. The third dead-end was when she believed she had found Bob Six, but he had the actual name of Bob Bland. When she finally encountered him, he denied that he was Bob Six, so she was bag to the beginning with not finding neither Hans nor Bob. In pursuit of her mystery, Kline discovered other things beyond finding the owner of the belt buckle, the big pattern on Europeans chefs immigrating into the US and how frequent it happens. She also learned the history of Bob Six, his ancestors and that the Sixes wound up with the largest collection of original Rembrandts in Europe. She also was able to interest herself in Culinary Association of Arizona and research more on what happens in those associations.

This American Life’s “The Giant Pool of Money” was a very interesting podcast to listen to because it showed a different perspective on money. The podcast was very informative and educational, but also very easy to follow along and to understand. The speakers did a very good job on using research, but also just talking about history of finances, how to incorporate money and the negative effects of mortgage and more into the conversation the speakers are having with the listeners. Something that this podcast did differently from the “Fast Fashion” podcast was to bring actual regular people who were affected by the topics and asked for their thoughts and what they went through during that time. It has definitely made it more credible and more personable. In the “Fast Fashion” podcast, it was much more casual and didn’t really lost any specific sources, but in this podcast, they spoke to a lot of researchers, reporters, bank workers and more which made this podcast a very good source to gather information from. The consistency of interviews with other people and then continuing to speak on facts historically was very effective for the podcast. They also used economic resources and statistics in the podcast. In the “Fast fashion” podcast, there was a lack of credibility because of how casual and light-hearted it was. Sure, the facts the ladies were saying were very shocking and they talked a lot about the negative sides of fast fashion but then they would transition into the next subject and include humor, change the tone every once in a while, and then mention a resource. In “The Giant Pool of Money” the tone stayed the same throughout it, they shared personal stories and was very heavy research based. They cited a lot of people and brought in experts to support their facts.