Month: February 2016

Apple Case CRQ

This article is locked and loaded with information and statistics hitting you within seconds of the last fact. As a child of Generation Z, hardly remembering a time with a dial up connection, security breaches on our security blankets a.k.a. phones and laptops, are terrifying and and close to unfathomable. The Apple Case is a scary thought for most people who, like I am are touching an Apple product more hours in the day then not; but, what called me from this article was not a statistic but a quote from Chris Soghoian, the principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union. “The court left open the door to surveillance as long as the primary function of the device was intact. So as long as Amazon Echo can tell you what temperature it is or can still play music, that case seems to suggest that the government might be able to force Amazon to spy on you.” Mr. Soghoian’s words were used as main examples of government technological invasion in the past but this particular quote was intriguing, and a little alarming, because it talks about future or present privacy invasion in our homes that we are unaware of masked as a cool new gadget. The gadget to which he is referring is basically a personal home assistant that looks like a speaker. By calling out “her” name “Alexa!” she turns on and answers your questions such as what the weather is, how bad traffic is or can even order your morning coffee or five o’clock cocktail (Manjoo 15). Of course this gadget is cool, its basically one of the next steps to having robots do our laundry, which I thought we would have by now anyway. What is scary is when this “helpful” device becomes dangerous, just like the possibility of smartphone being able to be accessed by the government. If Apple does not stand their ground with this case, our iPhones and Apple products may become something we have to live without. With the release with the next new technological advance instead of being excited, we would be scared and disappointed that the government had to go and ruin a good thing. Even though the Amazon Echo is probably not listening to our conversations within our home, the fact that it is even a possibility, and a growing possibility in the world today, is so wrong. Unfortunately, we can not have the best of both worlds in this situation. The government can not have the tools they need to get one step closer to tracking and shutting down the organization that killed countless American citizens that day in San Bernardino if Apple chooses not to give up their privacy fight. But, if Apple were to give up their privacy fight, our technology would become another terrorist in this already scary world. Instead of getting excited about a new technology, we are worried that it can hear us or data mine us but when did the feelings of paranoia sweep the nation, and why did they?

Works Cited:

Manjoo, Farhad. “The Apple Case Will Grope Its Way Into Your Future.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Feb. 2016. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

Review Based On Peer Review

Based on the feedback I received in peer review, I need to add more personal analysis to balance out the heavy amount of quotes that I have. Also, I could make a few changes to my introduction. I need to add more of how the author argues her point instead of how much she argues her point. Finally, I need to write a conclusion that is strong and supports my claims and affirms the authors.

Rhetorical Analysis Daily Free Write

The biggest challenge of this assignment thus far has been choosing a topic. I really liked the way the author in Stop Stealing from Strippers, the example opinion piece we read to prepare for this assignment, wrote and wanted to find an article that had lots of claims, like her’s did, that I could analyze but also had interesting subject matter. I was opposed to writing about politics, I have been doing a good bit of that recently and wanted to try something new, and I had already written about fashion just last week, which is what my go-to topic usually is. After searching pretty much all weekend, I found the perfect piece. “Why Do We Teach Girls That It’s Cute to be Scared?” by Caroline Paul, is written with lots of claims that can be analyzed multiple ways, it is clear what her claims are, I love the way she writes and her subject matter, feminism, is something that really is important to me. I feel really good about the topic I have chosen and the way my analysis is going so far.

Equality CRQ

This author and I had more in common then I expected. This whole piece was so compelling to me because I saw similarities, shocking statistics and learned so much but what really called out to me was when the author was talking about something someone said to her before she started work as a fire-woman, “What I didn’t expect was the question I heard more than any other: “Aren’t you scared?” It was strange — and insulting — to have my courage doubted. I never heard my male colleagues asked this. Apparently, fear is expected of women.” Growing up, I was the only girl in my family of sixteen cousins. There were times when I noticed differences, like when we were out in the woods and I had to go back to the house to use the restroom and they didn’t or my aunt not wanting me to play tackle football with my cousin twice my size. Like the author, “I got a few stitches, and kept biking and sledding. Misadventures meant that I should try again. With each triumph over fear and physical adversity, I gained confidence.” (Paul) In hindsight, the things that my parents held me back on, were always for my safety and I can not remember a time when they didn’t let me do something that wasn’t for that reason. However, if there had been an instance like that, my mom still would not hear the end of it. I am thankful for the sheer fact that my parents let me play the way I wanted to. I think that is part of the reason why today I have very little problems with being intimidated by challenges and am the most independent person out of my friend group almost always. Not because I am smarter then they are or more talented or a better person, but because I grew up with a freedom of expression and gender equality all around me that I carry with me every day. Unfortunately not every girl is raised like this and “According to a study in The Journal of Pediatric Psychology last year, parents are “four times more likely to tell girls than boys to be more careful” after mishaps that are not life-threatening but do entail a trip to the emergency room.” (Paul) It is okay for anyone to be scared, and for the author to be scared to start working at a dangerous job. What is not okay is when the courage of a woman is doubted and a man is called a hero for doing the same job. Why as a society are women expected to be scared of daunting challenges or more hands on jobs, and what does that say about the men who are shamed for being afraid of the same things?

Works cited:
Paul, Caroline. “Why Do We Teach Girls That It’s Cute to Be Scared?” The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Feb. 2016. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.

Based on the first paper

Based on the first paper and my professors comments, on my next paper I will be making a few changes. For my next paper I need to study a little more about MLA formatting and review the formatting on my paper more closely before turning it in. I can not believe I forgot a title! Also, I will work on summarizing less and on analyzing more when it comes to the articles. I think I will end up revising this paper and I look forward to being able to improve it with all the new skills I have learned.

Unit Reflection

I really enjoyed writing my New York Times Reader Analysis because it was unlike anything I had ever written before for a few reasons. I was thankful that we got to choose the topic ourselves and write about something we were really passionate about. That definitely made it easier to express how I felt about the articles I read and to examine my opinion against the authors. In the past I have really struggled with analytic writing because it is hard for me not to just put the entire article full of quotes in my paper so I can examine each and every thing the author said. I tried to cut back on the amount of quotes and information that I presented the reader but I know I included more then I should have. Although I think this essay was an exercise in more then just this particular course learning outcome, writing this piece taught me a lot about Conventions and Mechanics: Students will produce writing that is free of grammatical and mechanical errors that inhibit or interfere with the reader’s understanding. Students will follow conventions for documentation, formatting, and length requirements. In high school I formatted mainly with Chicago or Turabian citations, so I learned how to do MLA formatting and in text citations which is an invaluable tool for the rest of this semester and my college career. Implementing quotations or summaries from sources in writing is hard in my opinion and this essay certainly tested my ability to, hopefully, seamlessly include them to help reader understanding. I definitely surpassed the minimum length requirement and I think for my next essay I could work on constructive trimming down of what is and is not important.

Discussion from Thursday

As a part of out Rhetorical Analysis we discussed and learned about ethos, pathos and logos as models or persuasion in writing. Ethos is for the convincing of the reader of the ethics or credibility of the author. Pathos is the emotional appeal to engage the audience and appeal to their emotions. Logos is to appeal to the logic of the audience to get them thinking. These are not only used in writing but are key to a good and engaging rhetorical analysis.

Stealing from Strippers

This article was really interesting to me for many different reasons. It was refreshing to read an op-ed piece and a piece that didn’t have to do with politics or the upcoming election. I love personal pieces and this one was really interesting because other then the occasional feature on a Law and Order episode, I do not know much about stripping or “exotic dancing.” The lines that really called me from the page were, “Relegated to the fringes of the workplace, in part because of stigmas surrounding sex work, we are invisible. Clubs force us to work as “independent contractors.” We have no health insurance, workers’ compensation or other benefits. We have zero security.” I had always thought of stripping as a job, not a career, that people fell into because they were out of options. I never thought of it as something that someone did for 23 years like the author of this piece. I was right in that, according to the author, “Various circumstances have led dancers to places like this: lack of education or work experience, singlemotherhood, no child support or college-bound kids. Alcoholism, abusive boyfriends, student loans and car payments.” However, she says places and not the career itself and that really had me wondering if the career itself was by choice or done for the reasons she mentioned or if it were the venues that were chosen for those motivations. I was really astonished to learn that these workers have no benefits whatsoever. From what I have learned stripping is not the safest or secure job, the author even mentioned an instance where they were filmed and worried their images may end up on the internet, and to be reporting to work with no guarantees of help if anything ever went wrong, like in the example she gave, just does not sound right. This example did inspire the change that was the case that led to “one of the first unions in this country to cover workers in the sex trade.” I was really struggling to understand this line of work as anything but a performance based line of work so I decided to compare it to being a professional back up dancer. According to some research I did, “Backup dancing is irregular work, with a median pay rate of around $13 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Keep in mind that this high-intensity, physical job doesn’t often include benefits like sick time or health insurance” (Starr 1). So similar to strippers, if a backup dancer were to be injured before a show, say they were on a concert tour preforming 4-5 nights a week, they would not be covered by the show, provided no sick days and not making money for the days they don’t preform. Although this example may seem weak, it helped me to understand a little better why this would be upsetting to a dancer of any kind. It should not matter what line of work you are in, sex trade or stock trade, you should be provided basic benefits and promised basic security when you show up for work. What I could not understand was that since that is not the case, If this line of work is indeed a last ditch option, then shouldn’t it serve is a placeholder to get back on your feet and find a new job with benefits? Why would you stay at an unsafe, unsavory job with no safety and security for 20 plus years?

 

Works Cited:

Starr, Gigi. “The Average Salary of Backup Dancers.” EHow. Demand Media, n.d. Web. 15 Feb. 2016.

Revision Reflection

In the first reflection I wrote on my first draft I said that my Dior New York Times analysis was full of information and that possibly I had put too much information in my analysis. So I went back and looked at all the quotes I had added and trimmed it down slightly but really felt like the information was essential to proving my point so I kept most of it. I have a bad habit of being “finished” with a paper when I’m tired of looking at it and messing with it so this time I really tried to revise and polish the paper the best that I could. I am really pleased with the way my paper turned out and feel that it flows all the way through and proves my points in a very easy to understand way.

Status of my paper

I feel finished with my paper. Two people read and reviewed it at peer review and then following their corrections I had a friend read and review it to get it ready for final submission. I think just to make sure I’m happy with it I will read it again tonight and make some final corrections or additions as needed to make sure it is perfect.