My own draft & my colleagues draft

I've been thinking about my own draft for project three, and I have to tell you that I find it very difficult to describe my place. Because I am talking about a city, and not a specific small house, it is challenging. I have to decide which landmarks in the city are most important so I can describe them for my reader. I can't just choose random places; they need to be places in the city that matter. I want to take my reader visually to the city in which I am speaking about. I want him to feel the greatness of the city, so that he will want to go visit one day.

I am peer reviewing a colleagues draft on project three and my first reaction is that his paper clearly shows the different feelings he has about the golf course. He displays the beautiful feeling of nature as he steps on the golf course, but also the various obstacles and pressures he encounters along the way. I believe he needs to go into more detail about a specific part of golf, or a specific incident that would allow the reader to understand his conflicting feelings.

Coney Island of the Mind

This video displays how things are always going to change, but memories can be forever unaltered. For the man in the video, to keep your memories unchanged, you must have a "Coney Island of the mind." He recalls his childhood memories very clearly. He remembers the way the food smelt, and the different restaurant he used to eat at. He mentions how many of the restaurant have closed down, but it doesn't change much for him. His golden age will never be over; maybe he never wants to admit that his childhood is over. He emphasizes the importance of dreaming, if we ever want the real coney island to exist. He is dreading the day when Coney Island could vanish, because that is his childhood that would be disappearing right before his eyes. He keeps coming back to visit his hometown, because he has hope that it will return to its earlier state.

There are certainly negatives to Coney Island but those imperfections make it even more beautiful. No city or state is going to be perfect. The flaws of coney island make it real and humane. We don't live in a fairy tale world where everything can go right all the time. As much as I love living in Long Island, I don't enjoy every single thing about it. I can't stand the way people drive, or the service I get when I go to some restaurants. You have to take some and give some.

Home is like...

Home is like the sweetness of a Hershey's chocolate bar. There is nothing more delicious to me than the taste of Hershey's pure chocolate. I could eat it almost every day of my life, but occasionally I get sick of it and the chocolate becomes too sweet for me to keep eating. Majority of the time, home is great for me as I am extremely close with both my parents and sister. I could sit in the living room talking to them for hours upon hours, but there are those times where it simply becomes too much. My sister will make a comment that sets me off or my dad will yell at me for having a messy room. I will then need some time apart from my family. I will need to separate myself, just as I sometimes have to separate myself from chocolate. Too much of anything will drive you crazy; you need variety. Too much chocolate will make you hyper, and probably a bit nauseous. And I'm sure many people will agree that too much time at home will have you losing your mind.

Ink-shedding

When the book took over the the scroll, it was setting out to create something better and more effective. The creators of the book knew that individuals would find them easily accessible. If the book was not an overall better option than the scroll, people would not have accepted the remediation. They would have not been okay with scrolls becoming obsolete. The creators of the book knew how to appeal to the publics desires and needs. For example, print was created because the public needed a more efficient method of producing books. They were able to create the printing machine so that the aesthetic appearance was not completely different than what the public was previously accustomed to. But after a certain amount of time Johann Gutenbergs printing press wasn't the best invention out there anymore. The public became bored with the printing press and desired something even more technologically advanced. That is when the idea of digital text emerged. We now have the power to type a sentence within seconds or delete a paragraph with a single touch of a key. The possibilities are truly endless. Another great thing about digital text is that it is flawless. We see the machines as perfect, being as they are constantly meeting our every day needs. Because there is constantly new material being circulated on the internet, computers are allowing the freedom of continuous change. This continuous change and flexibility is one of the most essential aspects of electronic text.

Chapter 3, prezi #1

Their main argument is that electronic text enables us to create various paths to different locations. Once we put something on the internet, it will begin to circulate in any which way. We sometimes cannot control where it goes, which is why we must be careful in what we post. Back in the day, the type writer's structure was rigid and unable to be changed. We are now able to alter our writing and format on the computer to give it an aesthetic appearance. We can make one letter bigger than the next, or change the font of each paragraph. We can copy and paste within two seconds, or delete a paragraph within a blink of an eye. We don't need to sit and work hard at making sure something is completely gone, just as the man did when he was trying to rip up the phone book. The electronic text resembles a period because it was built from previous technologies and each part of the pyramid is battling against the next. Each part of the pyramid is like a stepping stone to the very top.

About Taylor Mali: what role does performance or writing space play in the making of meaning?

This poem differs greatly in its two recensions. The poem generally speaks about the way our society has changed to question almost everything we say in conversation. We find it cool to say the expressions "you know" and "like totally." We tend to sway away from declarative sentences and lean towards questionable statements. That being said, we are prone to end a lot of sentences with a question mark, rather than a period. In this poem, Mali emphasizes the way our generation uses these slang terms to become extremely inarticulate.  In the first recension, we watch Mali perform this poem using his facial expressions and hand gestures. We can watch his mouth move and listen to his voice as he recites the poem out loud to the audience. In the second recension, the poem is presented in a textual manner. It is displayed to us in a way that we must focus in on the words that are moving across the screen.

Orality has an abundance of privileges. Tone of voice is something that we may take for granted, but is nonetheless extremely important. As Mali recites his poem, he ends a lot of his sentences as though he was asking a question. It is both humorous and enthralling, while grabbing the audiences attention. Changing your tone even the slightest bit can add a great amount to your presentation. You are also inclined to connect with an oral performance because it is almost as if the person is talking right to you. You don't have to imagine the way they are speaking; it is simply handed to you. Although the textual writing space is unconventional, it does have its benefits. You can change the way you write, just as you change your tone of voice in an oral presentation. In the textual presentation of the poem, each word was carefully displayed in a certain font and size. You may not think something so trivial would matter to the reader, but subconsciously, you are more likely to pay attention when there is variety. Just as we don't enjoy listening to a monotone speaker, we don't like to read a strict form of writing. We see these different forms of words and begin to question why one word is bigger than the next. It may have a symbolic meaning or it may not, but that is something you must decode. Because the words moved across the page very quickly, you aren't able to read a few sentences and then go back to it a few minutes later. You must sit there and read it all it once.

Second Prezi on Chapter 2

Technology will always be in our life, whether we like it or not. When we think of writing, we generally think about a pen and a piece of paper. What we don't think about is that we also write in our minds while we do our daily thinking. Many say that technology has taken over our lives and can even outsmart us at times. It will certainly shock us with the remarkable things it can do. We also trust technology to a great extent. We get in our cars, plug in an address, and wait for our GPS to direct us. We clearly have faith in the system. But on the other hand, technology needs us as well. They can't do things on their own; humans are vital to the technological world. We must accept that all technology will eventually be replaced by newer technology. It is an inevitable occurrence that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

First Prezi on Chapter 2

Technology is all about incorporating "the old" with "the new". Although the design might alter slightly in "the new", some basic structure will always remain the same. We may think of technology just in terms of machines, but there are other technologies that exist as well, such as art or music. Some may say that with the new technology, we just sit back and let the machine do the work for us. That is not the case considering every technology requires us to do a certain amount of manual work. Even the computer has our fingers quickly typing on a keyboard. Competition allows us to see the rivalry between the old and the new. This rivalry shouldn't be thought of as destructive, because with it we are able to remediate technology and create something even better. "The old" shouldn't always be the good guy. There are great ideas associated with "the new" as well. The new type of hypermediacy isn't simply shown to you in the form of A+B=C. You sometimes may have to focus in and truly pay attention to what you are looking at.

Are you afraid of writing?

I can definitely say I am afraid of writing. I sometimes fear that my arguments aren't strong enough or my point will not get across to the reader. You have a big responsibility as a writer; you must captivate your readers attention. If you bore your readers, they will simply put down the paper. They don't owe you anything. You owe them something because they are taking time out of their busy day to read your work.

I take writing seriously, but not as seriously as Jacques Derrida. I don't have nightmares about being a cruel or evil person. In my opinion, writing should not be something that keeps you up all night with sweats. That is not to say you should take it lightly either. You must find that happy medium, and that medium may be different for each writer. I am able to write well without driving myself crazy, but others might need to stress themselves out in order to get one sentence down on paper. For Derrida, I believe his anxiety was a huge part of his writing. He was so accustomed to it that he might not have been an excellent writer without it.

Closer Prezi

http://prezi.com/ql434kcqvwfo/edit/?auth_key=ochib3s&follow=jenwenat10@aol.com