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Group Conferencing Papers (3)



Journal 3 February 5,2007

In my last paper I tried to touch on all the things we've worked on so far including the four line sentence. One of the argument strategies I used was comparison. I argued by comparing different peoples idea of perfection and it turned out to work pretty well. I also tried to use the strategy of arguing through narration or description. I tried to put some real life stories about my idea of perfection through narration. This one was a bit confusing but I think it fit in well with my word and how I used the strategy. I really used both strategies to help get my definition of my word across but when I used comparison I was also trying to incorporate the many different meanings that people may have of the word. By narration and description I was trying to get my definition and my beliefs of the word across to the audience. I really feel that both of these strategies helped organize my piece because I was able to put my idea together more clearly and set-up my paper in a way that was easier to read. While trying to make sure my argument strategies fit in well I think I may have struggled with using all three of the logos, pathos and ethos. All though i did try and touch on them, I didn't feel I went into enough depth to really capture the readers emotional feelings. I may need to go back and try and touch on each one of those quite a bit more.



Brute Debate Jay Sackett Mrs. Wendt English 101 January 30, 2008

For my definition of Brute, I believe that it is someone or something that is insensitive, cruel and knows it. I also argued for the doctor based on my definition. Sure, what the patient did was cruel and insensitive but any human being who didn’t have alcohol in their system would not act that way. The doctor is more of a brute because he did cruel things and knew he was being cruel. He had no reason to be doing the insensitive things he was doing. It says right in the text that he does finally calm down and lays still on the bed but why does he do that? It’s not because of tearing his earlobes because that would mean nothing to him. So why is it? I believe that he is finally sobering up and realizing that if he doesn’t settle down then he’s not going to get help. This proves my point that any sober person would not act this out of control at a hospital. Therefore the alcohol is the excuse for his behavior. What’s the doctor’s excuse? He has none, which is why he is more of a brute then the patient. The doctor abused his power and knew he did. The exact definition I used for brute. The fact that he leaned over the patient, wiped the clots from his eyes and grins is totally unnecessary. He stooped to his level by using harsh language and tying his earlobes to the stretcher but then goes to the extreme of grining that harsh grin at him. The doctor knows he’s done wrong and continues to be cruel to the patient. The patient doesn’t necessarily know that he’s done wrong because he in the total wrong state of mind. The doctor had been up for many hours that day and night but its his job and that doesn’t give him the right to treat the last patient like crap. The doctor should know what kind of state the patient is in and deal with it. There were ways to get around treating the patient like he did. He didn’t have to tie his earlobes to the stretcher, he could’ve have easily put a neck brace on the patient and wrapped an ace bandage across his eyes and under the support. That way the he could still work on his forehead. I just feel the Doctor had no excuse for his actions and he stooped to the patients level when the patient was totally intoxicated and had no idea how he was acting. I could never ever see a person who has no alcohol in their system and go in there and act like that. If the patient had been able to realize he was going to die with the doctor’s help, he would’ve shut right up and been still. The doctor fits my definition of a brute much more because he knew what he was doing when he was being cruel.

Word For Paper 2

per·fec·tion     [per-fek-shuhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun 1.	the state or quality of being or becoming perfect. 2.	the highest degree of proficiency, skill, or excellence, as in some art. 3.	a perfect embodiment or example of something. 4.	a quality, trait, or feature of the highest degree of excellence. 5.	the highest or most nearly perfect degree of a quality or trait. 6.	the act or fact of perfecting. [Origin: 1175–1225; < L perfectiōn- (s. of perfectiō) a finishing (see perfect, -ion); r. ME perfectiun, perfeccioun < AF < L, as above] Journal 1 January 15,2008

From english 100 last semester I really learned how to apply some of these concepts to my reader or audience. Near the end of the semester I realized how easy it is to write once you know your purpose and the audience in which your writing to. Based on your audience you could write using different types of logic and emotion. There have only been a few times that I have used logic and emotion when writing and that was when I knew who my audience was. When I appealed to my audience or my readers I used language in which they would use or that they could understand. I knew how to grab there attention and keep them focused. You have to consider many things about the audience in order to appeal to them in such a way they will understand you and be able to connect with your writing. I still lack in appealing to my readers through character. I would say being able to appeal to my audience through character is one of my weakest areas. I still need much more work on appealing to my readers period though. Last semester was the first semester I finally learned how to appeal to an audience. I can give examples although I don't very often because I feel like examples are too much detail. I just have to be sure I use them whenever possible. As for being logical, I started doing that in some of my final papers last semester but I still need a lot of work with it. I know how to be a good moral person I just don't know how to show it in writing. So hopefully I can work on that more this semester. After learning about these appealing concepts last semester hopefully I can use them this semester and Improve on them.

A-2 Jan. 20th

The basis of this article stands in its title, the high cost of English. After reading the article through I realized some of the points the author made but I was left with many questions. I also saw another side of the argument with some of the authors points. First off he talks about how English has evolved and came to the countries it has. There are so many countries that many of the people know English as their second language. In Europe one German by the name of Stefan Klein, feel that by switching the language of the country, a country could save 25 billion dollars a year. However he does see that it would be very difficult to get that many people to learn Esperanto as their main language be he believe it is possible. Grin talks a lot about trying to get countries to change their language over to Esperanto. He feels it would be easy for most because it is such an easy language to teach. He also states that if teachers changed to English after world war II then why can’t they change now? I see his point, but there is a lot more to it then just teaching people the language. Grin goes on to state some of the positives of Esperanto and the article ends by saying that although this may not happen it could be done just starting with a few. The whole issue in this article is the how much English costs the world and how much Esperanto could save that price. His arguments are pointed out with examples from the past such as when teachers switched to English after WW II. Another argument is that Esperanto is an extremely easy language to pick-up. He goes on with that argument with another one saying that Esperanto has no native speakers therefore you won’t have to worry about importing native teachers. Another example Grin uses to argue his point is about how easy it would be to switch just like it was easy to switch currencies for Europe. The author really uses logic to try and persuade you. He backs his logic up with examples from the past and uses the examples to show how other people have done it as well. He also try to appeal to your emotion by stating how much it can save and what it could do for English speaking countries. He tries to appeal to readers’ sense of morals by appealing to Esperanto not being a native language. His arguments bring up some good valid points and I’m always one for saving money but in this case there just seems to be too much involved to save this kind of money. By the time we put out all the money to change all books and road signs we would be in such a deficit it would take years to even break even. There is so much to consider when trying to change the language of a country. It would be nice to save that kind of money, but by the time everyone learned it and everything was changed over the whole country would be hurting for money. The one thing he does persuade me well with is how much knowledge he has on the subject. He backs up all his information with history he knows relating to this situation. It’s a great way to persuade but the other side of the argument has its valid points as well. Overall it was a good point to bring up and a good argument. The audience reading this would be anyone who speaks English and those involved in a decision to change the language of a country. The article was more written for those who speak English and want to save money by switching to Esperanto. The more people who want to save money the more persuasive you can be toward the government. He had some great strengths to his arguments because he backed them up with great examples from the past and he really showed how easy it would be to change it. The negative side of his arguments is that he doesn’t discuss enough of the other point of view. He only looks at how easy it will be not really how hard it would be to change so many textbooks and city signs and road signs. The title really draws you in just by saying saving money.

http://webtools.uiuc.edu/blog/view?blogId=25&topicId=947&count=1&ACTION=VIEW_TOPIC_DIALOGS&skinId=286

Paper 1 Rough Draft Is Esperanto Really Going To Save You Money?

The thought has crossed many people’s minds – would changing our language be useful? This question has been taken to the extreme saying that, changing our language could save us billions of dollars. The English language may not be the easiest or smartest language out there, but trying to convert all the people, the laws and the history would be nearly impossible. On top of that, it would cost us even more to try and convert all the things that are already in English. I could understand that in billions of years if everyone converted to Esperanto it may be cheaper, but with the deficit our government has already there’s no way this could be possible. Could you even a imagine reading a “bridge may be icy” sign in another language: El puente puede ser helado. First of all that’s not even shorter then the English version and second, some of those words have two meanings. This would just confuse the American even more. Esperanto words may have more then one meaning and I could see where that would save some money but I could also see how confusing it could be to Americans who may not understand that language. Trying to learn that helado means icy and ice cream could be difficult to some people who have never learned another language. And could one imagine how many “bridge may be icy” signs there are across America let alone the rest of the road signs you see? Maybe Esperanto could help eliminate some of those signs by combing words or using words with multiple meanings but it would be very costly to change all of our road signs and billboards. Dennis Baron brings up the point that training teachers wouldn’t be that difficult. He says that Esperanto is much easier to learn and it can be taught to ten times as many people. Although this may all be true, it still requires every single teacher in America to go back to school to learn this language. Not all teachers have the money or time to go back to school with the families they have started now. I say this based on my father who is a teacher. He would have no time to try and go back to school to learn Esperanto. He is so busy with teaching, coaching and trying to watch our sporting events that he would not even consider going back to school. Because of teachers not being able to go back to school, we would begin hiring people who know the language for dirt-cheap prices. Although there are supposedly no native speakers of Esperanto, other languages would be able to pick up on Esperanto easier because their languages have more in common with Esperanto then English would. The Natives may not have had as much schooling as our educators today which means students wouldn’t be getting as good of an education. There are so many problems associated with trying to teach educators a new language when they’ve already been through school once learning a totally different language. On another note, what are the plans for our previous history? We would have to re-write all of history books and for that matter all of the books schools use. This would cost a fortune. We can’t keep our history books in English because the future kids of the world won’t even learn English. All they will know is Esperanto. Therefore all of history books and laws will have to be re-written in Esperanto. The Bill of Rights and our amendments will all have to be written in Esperanto for future generation to understand them. All these little things we are doing are adding up extremely fast in price. If you could imagine re-writing all the traffic laws and then making that many copies for all the states, the price would be very costly. That’s only for the traffic laws. There are so many other laws we as Americans have to know and abide by that would have to be re-written. How would that make a person feel having their language taken away from them that they spent their whole life learning in school, to learn some language that is only going to truly cost more in the beginning? The final question to ask yourself, is it truly worth it? Looking at both aspects in my opinion the negatives outweigh the positives. The biggest thing that Esperanto is supposed to do is save money when really it’s going to cost a lot more then people may expect. The cost is more of a negative to the language then a positive. In the long run it may help from using so much paper and ink but for the next hundred years it will make us use twice as much in order to redo everything we’ve already written in English. Teachers who have been to school enough already will have to find time in their busy lives to go back and try to learn a totally different language that they have never heard of. In the meantime every adult in the U.S. will have to go back and try and learn the language. Changing a country’s language doesn’t happen overnight; there is so much more to it then just getting the people to learn it. I don’t see any reason to try and convert to Esperanto; it will only put us in more of a deficit and confuse more people.

Works Cited “High cost of English got you down? Speak Esperanto and save.” The Web of Language, 23 Jul 2007. 17 Jan 2008 http://webtools.uiuc.edu/blog/view?blogId=25&topicId=9 47&count=1&ACTION=VIEW_TOPIC_DIALOGS&skinId=286