Course Evaluation

I think the most interesting thing of this course is its form which is very relaxed. We always start class with talking about the news recently. I really like this part, because it helps me connect to the whole world. I also like the themes we talk about during the course, because they are close to the really life. The course combines news and blogs with Harris book. The book shows a lot writing skills and is also very helpful. Besides, we use blogs to share our writing works, which is often useful for me when I didn’t know how to start to write. Others’ writing can give me some ideas. In addition, the materials the professor give us are all very clearly. To be honest, most of my orther professors give us the readings in scanning copy, which are really dim. I really hate them when I reading them. But this course don't has that problem. All materials are very clear. In a conclusion, the course is not very hard and makes me feel more comfortable when I am writing.  

The second essay

Writing 1122

Naitong Li

Feb 27, 2012                                         

Multiple News Times

During recent ten years, people create out many amazing things. Among them, a series of production of one company is outstanding.   Since 2002, after a big change and breakthrough, the productions of this company become popular around the world. Their simple but beautiful designs make people fall in love with them easily. Different from other similar products, they use Monotone colors and an almost unchanged design to track many people’s eyes successfully. Fashion people look them like a label of avant-grade. They are a sign of success in some countries. In some degree, they represent wealth and social status, and aesthetic force.    As the hottest products in the world, they have fans in every country. People are keen on speculating of its next generation products, and waiting for them.  Guessing the new functions of the products becomes a game around the world.  So every time a new kind of products appears on the market, it will appeal many people to wait before the door so that they can buy them at the first time. They sales very well even they are more expensive than other similar products. They use just a few years to occupy the most part of the market in this area, and become a legend in the commercial world.  Now, it is very easy to guess what the products are, yes, they are the products of “i” series: Ipod, Itouch, Iphone Ipad and Imac.

             Because they are so popular in the world, there is lots of news of them every day. Almost every piece of the related news will become the headlines on that day. The New York Times even has the special topics for both the Apple incorporated company and their former CEO, Jobs Steve.  Many people write on their blogs to analysis it from different angles. If we follow this news for a period of time, we will find out a strange phenomenon. We will discover that even we know there is only one company called Apple in the world, but after we read the newspaper, watch TV, read magazines, and search for the Internet to follow its news, we may confused by the contents and think there may be a lot of Apple companies in the world. Each one has different characters. 

Recently, a report on New York Times attracted much attention; it was called “In China, Human Costs Are Built into an Ipad.” The main purpose of this report is to show the horrible work condition and low salary for the Chinese labors who work in the Apple’s suppliers, Foxconn. It writes the work situation in China, and the relationship between Apple Company and its suppliers. Many people read the terrible work conditions and Apple’s ineffective protection policy in these factories from this article. A lot of people start to blame Apple for that they have no human rights, and very mercenary. It becomes a new challenge for the Apple’s model of industrial.  But when we look back, we can think of that, in our mind, Apple often represents the world’s most advanced model of industrial. It is one of the most commercial cases in the world, and many people admire Steven Job’s individual talent. So it seems like there are two Apples companies in the world, one is represent cold-blooded, ruthless, and mercenary, the other one is represent smart, creative, and passion. Which one is the real Apple? Who we should believe? And what’s make them such different? At first, we may feel confused by these questions, and can’t answer them. Actually, if we pay attention to the people we get this really different information from, the questions will be very easy to answer. In addition, if we look an article from a business analysis report written by a business consultancy or interview an economics, we will have a deep feeling of the success of Apple’s Company.  They would say that Apple has the word most developed production model, and it represents the biggest trend of the world economic pattern: economic integration. It choose America as its new technologies research and development place so that they can take advantages of the advanced scientific and technical personnel there, and it is more helpful for them to protect the property rights for the new technologies. Meanwhile, they choose developing countries, such China and India, who has rich human resources and cheap labor to assemble the products in order to keep the cost low and get more net profits. Of course opponents or their adversaries think from a totally different angle; they may say Apple built their profits on others’ blood. Their products are like a trap, because at once you buy one product, you should by a lot of related things in the following time.

Even for the biggest problem— the work condition in its suppliers, different people still have different description.  Like In 2010, Steven P. Jobs discussed the company’s relationships with suppliers at an industry conference. “I actually think Apple does one of the best jobs of any companies in our industry, and maybe in any industry, of understanding the working conditions in our supply chain,” said Mr. Jobs, who was Apple’s chief executive at the time and who died last October. “I mean, you go to this place, and, it’s a factory, but, my gosh, I mean, they’ve got restaurants and movie theaters and hospitals and swimming pools, and I mean, for a factory, it’s a pretty nice factory.”  (New York Times) What’s more, in order to refute the complaints advanced by the human rights advocates of its overtime work requirements and the fatigue of standing work style, a spokesman of Apple company said that “All assembly line employees are given regular breaks, including one-hour lunch breaks,” the company wrote, and only 5 percent of assembly line workers are required to stand to carry out their tasks. Work stations have been designed to ergonomic standards, and employees have opportunities for job rotation and promotion, the statement said. (New York Times)

            If you only read news contains these speeches, you may feel the factory is not bad as the opponents said.

            But the dissent said that the real fact seems far from what the leaders in Apple said. It is true that the factories has restaurants and hospitals, but that just because the workers here are living in the factories, these infrastructures can let them waste less time on those things. As for the swimming pools and movie theaters, they are more like decorations, because the workers are too tired to use them after work. What’s worse, the regular rest time is very short, and nearly all people take rest at a same time, so it is even hard to walk outside the factory.  And the lunch time is only one hour, which is very short to eat in a healthy rate. Moreover, the spokesman of Apple Company never mentions that the workers usually need to work seven days a week without additional salary. Besides, the opponents use a piece news to show the security situation in Foxconn, that is two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. At this time, if you read news and blogs written by opponents, you may think the Apple Company is really inhumanly.

            From this example, we can clearly feel that how differences a same fact can be reported by different people from different angles. They are all right, no one fabricate facts, what they do is just choose one point of view to write the news so it can service their final goals. Even what the opponents said, which seems more close the truth, still have more problems. They don’t show the total work condition in China, the average salary, and we don’t know the example they use is weather often happen or it is a common problem in the whole China. Because News is service for the people, so different people can see different things from one event and write in totally different points, as a result, they send really different information and feelings to the public. This situation is very common in our daily life. Just for the same example, for the Apple’s production model, Obama use a totally new angle which is different from the leaders and the opponents. What he said is that the Apple should bring their factories back to America so that it can provide more work opportunities to solve the employment crisis. Why he said this is of course because he is the present, to solve to employment problem is his biggest responsibility.

            There is a fable in China called blind people touch an elephant. It tells a story that let four people who never see elephant to touch an elephant and describe it, but they can’t see it. Because each one just touches a part of the elephant, after they do that, they get different conclusions. The one who touches the elephant’s ears thinks an elephant looks like a fan, the one who touches the leg think it likes a pillars, the one who touches the body think it likes a wall, and the last one, who touches the tail, think it likes a cord. So no one get the real answer. I think this story can greatly describe the situation of our news bulletin reports. If one chooses one part to describe the whole event, it must be not very accurate and contain his own speculation. It will mislead the readers a lot. But sometimes they must choose one point to report for some reasons. Even people want to report an even in a total impersonality way and show the real facts, it is still very hard, because every have different experience and thoughts.

            So in this multiple news time, as a reader we should pay attention to what we read, and think issues in a dialectical way. Just in this way, we can figure out what the real world is, and treat the world in a right way. 

Taking an approach

I think it is very hard to define the meaning of taking an approach. I feel really confused and find very hard to distinguish it with “forwarding”. At first, I think it focus on the construction more than on the content. So the writers may say something about how to apply others’ model or form to complete our own writing works. But I finally the find that the fact is more complex than that, which makes me puzzled. I think the most difficult part for taking an approach is separate our own works from the original works. It is easier influenced by others if we don’t really know what I will next. I mean, for most of time, I only have a slur conception about what I will write, and then it will become clearly during the writing progress. So some writing skills also can give me some good idea to help me organize my essay. But I think it is very hard for me to apply this skill, because it may make me become a thief who stealing others ideas. For myself, although there are a lot of differences between two different records of the same song, and it express different feelings and spirits, I still think the second one is come from the first one. It is not a new song. Harris offers three methods to tell people how to use the technique. Acknowledging, turning an approach on itself, and reflexivity.

I don’t know whether I understand about taking an approach in a right way, so I just choose an example according my own understanding.  New York Times often chose one style to create article when one topic is very popular. It is includes many readers’ letter to the editor, which can show the common peoples’ opinions and the flourishing degree of the news. For example, recently there is a famous basketball star named Jeremy Lin, so there are some article write in that way. Like “Must Faith and Sports Be at Odds? Yes and No” and “Letters to the Editor”.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/sports/in-box-by-any-appellation-jeremy-lin-thrills-and-inspires.html?ref=jeremylin
&
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/sports/in-box-by-any-appellation-jeremy-lin-thrills-and-inspires.html?ref=jeremylin

counter to my own blog

Though there are still many problems with blogs, in general, Sulliva supports blogs a lot, because it has many advantages indeed.

The first one is when writers write blogs, they don’t need to think too much. Unlike other publication writers, bloggers have less responsibility for their words.  Bloggers can write before events settled and a clear pattern emerges. As Sullivan writes: “We blog now-as news reaches us, as facts emerge.” Because there is no one to editing a bloggers’ blogs, the content of them can be much more personality, more alive, and more fresh. What’s more, it is hard and expensive for a writer to publish his works in other formal. Like Sullivan writes, “Every professional writer has paid some dues waiting for an editor’s nod, or enduring a publisher’s incompetence”. So, for a nameless writer, he can hardly get readers, though he has a very good production. But bloggers just need a computer and Internet, in this way, what he need do to publish things is just click of the Publish Now button. It is very easy and free, which let everyone can write something and share them with other people. The second advantage for blog is writes can get more feedback. Readers can respond easily, quickly, and directly to the author. Though these response maybe more brutal than any editor, they are more approximates to the facts. Writers need them to improve themselves. The third, author need to correct errors and acknowledge mistakes in time, they can rewrite again and again. Furthermore, he can also change his altitude alone with the whole situation change. The fourth, thanks to the hyperlink, authors can use less word to describe a thing more particular. Sometimes a link is valued than many words, and the authors don’t need to worry about the copyright problem. The fifth, a bloggers can also learn a lot of things from writing a blog. Because there would be some readers who are more familiar with what the author writes. So they can provide many useful information and links to the author. On the other hand, these things make the article more comprehensive.

I think these five advantages are the main answer to the question in the title. In the end, using a sentence from Sullivan as a conclusion, “blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, and more alive”.

But I really disagree with Sullivan reasons to support blogs. First, I think the freedom for the blogs writers lead a lot of problems to the world.  Because they have less responsibility for what they write on the blog, so they can write something without thinking carefully. There are many extremely thinking on the blogs, which leads teenager who are easily influenced by others, wrong views on the world.  For example, every time after the government adopts a new policy, there must be a lot of people writing on their blogs to analyze it. Many of them will be against the new policy and think it just brings benefits to the top drawer. Although this is may help the teenagers think critically, it also makes them lose confidence in the government easily, which is not very good for them. Second, it seems like that people more like to write things that are against the author rather than support. So it easily make the writers lose confidence when he or she reads the responds from others, The third, because the author can correct his or her mistake easily, so they don’t pay more attention when they write it at first time. It is a consequence that there are more mistakes on the blogs than on other media forms. The forth, because writes can use links easily when the write on the internet, their ability of describe just by words is gradually decreasing, which may one of the reasons why we don’t never have Shakespeare in the modern life. The fifth, though blogs are a good platform for studying form others, but there are some way better than it. Because we don’t know who is writing to us before the computer, we can’t know why he has authority, and whether he says is right or not. So if we learn things from library, it will be more effective and the equality can be guaranteed.      

At first I am really agree with Sulliva and his conclusion. But today I write on the other side to support my first essay. I find I have a lot of reasons to disprove his ideas. So, here I counter to his reason why blogs are good for our life one by one. I think it is very interesting to write is. Sometimes, the fact depends on who you write it.   

Countering

Harris uses the term, to counter is not to nullify but to suggest a different way of thinking. Its defining phrases are On the other hand… and Yes but. It shows another reason why we quote others writing to our own article. He shows three ways to counter, which are arguing the other sides to the original idea, finding uncovering values of the article and making the limits of the old theory.  The three methods just like what we use when we try to solve a math proofs problem. We can use different ways to prove the null hypothesis is wrong. Like proving it is wrong directly, giving a counter-example, or proving the inverse proposition is right. If you can have these proof methods at your finger ends, you can solve the problems easily and quickly. Same as solving a mathematic problem, if we know some different ways to counter, we can make our writing diversity and various. We can have more thinking and inspiration when we creating.

In think the “countering” parts in the blogs is be used most on the comment parts. Actually, totally disagreement is less than half agree and half disagree. But when the situation comes to blog, it has some changes.  People usually choose to writes comments to the ideas that they are entire agree or disagree, it seems like they are views are rather extreme sometimes. For many times, readers counter the author just because they are thinking in an angle that the author is missed, but they don’t find out by themselves, so it shows like there are just one method to counter that is saying the original idea is totally “wrong”. But if we read the comments carefully, I think we can find that the readers are using different method to counter.

            I have to say, the methods Harris says about how to counter is excellent for the academic writes, which can make their article more logical. But it is hard for common writers apply in the daily life, because it needs good senses and think comprehensively.

Forwarding

Harris use the term, a writer forwards a text by taking words, images, or ideas from it and putting them to use in new contexts. He divides the methods of forwards into four parts, which are illustrating, authorizing, borrowing and extending. . Through reading what he writes, I think he treats the forwarding progress as recreating not as quotation. His forwarding includes transferring the no-text form like image into text form, using a new angle to explain an old fact, and giving more examples and deep thinks to an idea.  He clearly writes the purpose of us when we do forwarding and what technique we can use to get our destination. I think all of us should have done forwarding, but may be just subliminal to do it. He makes the forwarding process standardized, and let us know what skills we should to use, so that we can use them purposefully. 

            To be honest, I think the feeling of the forwarding on the internet is different from the paper works. Because using links is much easier on the Internet. Most people choose to add a picture, a video or a link directly with some simple explanation to their works rather than describe or illustrating it carefully. But because it is a fundamental skill of writing, nearly everyone will use it when they writing. Because I am not a fixed read of a blogger, I just open one’s casually, even in this I can easily find an example. Like Ezra Klein, he writes his thinking about some article on the Washington Post, he always needs to illustrate a chart or an article when he begins to analysis it. He extends the original thinking with his own. I think everyone need this technique when he writes some complex thinking. None can create everything by himself, and which will also less authority. So in order make our writing more believable and can evoke more attention, we must use this skill when we writing, no matter a paper or a blog. This reason makes it a very common skill.

https://plus.google.com/s/blogger/people#109129654499278135352/posts

New press sphere & blogs

I think the New York Times like the vane for blogs. It always plays the role that put out a problem. Once New York Times reports something, there will be a lot of bloggers write and discuss about it. For example, if the New York Times reports a new policy of Obama, next day, there will be a lot of discussions about it, like why he propounds the policy, what it will bring to the society, the benefits and the loss of it, whether it is a good policy in the long run… People write their own thinking, and some professional person like economists, politicians, sociologist will explain it with their professional knowledge. In this way, people can learn many things easily. Bloggers help the common people learn the policy more clearly, they show the deep meaning which we are hardly find by ourselves in it. In addition, the blogs like a stretch for the New York Times. New York Times always reports a piece of news for just one time, it will quickly be replaced by others next day, but in blogs, you can find a lot follow reports about it. There will be a lot people still pay attention and focus on it.  Besides, there will be a lot of bloggers who are the exact witness or who has the personal experience, so we can learn the most reality of the news through their blogs. We can see how different people reflect to same news from different social status or even different countries. Because different people use different angle, it always very interesting and can let us think deeply. In my heart, blogs is a stretch in vertical and horizontal direction. It is a part of the press sphere in the modern time.