Category: Blog English 110

Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts” Comparison

The differences between Lamott and I is that on  my first draft, I tend to try to be precise as possible. I look at my essay as if each sentence will be used and I need to make every word count towards what I want to say.  I do not like just rambling and “barfing” out my rough draft. I feel this way can get way to messy and lead to an inaccurate paper. I like to take a good amount of time writing my paper, maybe even a day, to get a thorough and complete essay. With that complete, I can cut sentences out and trust that the integrity of my paper still remains.  Nothing surprised me with this as I was always told to just let your mind explode on the paper and to clean it up later.

Revision Strategy

My Goals is to add my own experiences to my paper to strengthen my claim.  The steps that I will take to accomplish this goal will be to reread my paper and look for spots that need a connection to the reader. When this spot arrases, I will go deep into my memory bank to draw out a solid and strong point that will support my claim. I want to elaborate on my existing thoughts as well to expand my view on the claim. Lastly, word choice will be reexamined to evaluate how effective and vital each sentence is to my paper. I see my biggest challenge will be to incorporate an effective personal experience that will help to add to the overall meaning of my essay. If this challenge is to big to overcome, I will immediately reach out to my peers. Having different sets of minds that think differently will help me cater to a larger audience. Hopefully, my peers will have a different look on my challenge and can help me over come it. No challenge is to big for a writer to solve. Another resource to use would be to speak my essay out-loud. This strategy can help me notice flaws within the language that I use. Doing so will make my paper more clear to the reader.

Global Edits V.S. Local Edits

Global edits and local edits both have there ways to improve they way you write. Global edits focus on the major components of the paper such as main ideas and themes. Local edits take it to a smaller structure and focus on the lower level sentence edits such as words choice and or sentence structure.  Local edits always seem to come first for me when I do the revision process. I look at how my word choice blends together. I want to sound proficient and smart when I write so I try to create a master piece every sentence. When looking at global edits, I really need to work with my local edits so that the main theme is delivered. I want to send the reader with a home run message to take home. I want to change the way the reader thinks and that is through my global edits. I need to bring strong evidence to the table to help define and back up my statements. I seem to prioritize the local edits over global edits when I revise my paper. If I can put together a symphony of words then the reader will get my message. The global edits help with deep meaning while local edits are more surface modifications. Out of the two, I like to do global edits more because it does not have to have so many restrictions that local edits have. In the end, these two types of edits all enhance a paper and strengthen what you want to get across to your reader.

Intro

The creative quality of using metaphors can be dated back thousands of years. A unique process that involves  critiquing ones writing to the uttermost in order to achieve an effective mode of communication. This way of thinking subconsciously is translated into the universe of medical science and the well-being of oneself. A controversial issue revolves around the use of this form of figurative language in how we perceive our destiny. Metaphors, dominantly, can be used within the processes of perceiving our bodies, pursuing health, and helping people cope with illness. The beautiful world around us is accompanied with a diverse language, that with proper care, can demonstrate the capabilities of strengthening and preserving the mental and physical aspects of people.

 

Intro 2

 

The use of metaphors in a community demonstrate the complexity of the human language. Metaphors deliver a powerful message than help translate the destiny of people, empowering them to strive for pure happiness. Ones health can rely on the use of metaphors to help them cope with mental and physical issues. Metaphors positively affects the way we perceive our well-being and pursuit of happiness. They personify the illness or mishap and lead a person into a life journey.

Reading The Trouble With Medicine’s Metaphors 

Dhruv Khullar

 

Khullar opened with a compelling heart felt message that provokes emotion towards a loved one. He talked about the will to live and to fight through ones sickness. The metaphors used to describe medicine have been challenged by his views. Setting up numerous examples, he displays the way that metaphors play a role in the communication between a doctor and a patient. Factual experiments were presented to show help provide evidence for his cause.  The correlation between how you emotionally feel versus what your actually feel via touch. The compassion included the idea that one person could change the way they feel when they touch something wether it would be hot or cold. His message to the reader is that is it appropriate to communicate a fictitious metaphor when talking about the journey one has to go through to survive. Could one person intake more negative emotional damage when using a metaphor to describe there sickness?

 

This judement looked upon by Dhruv Khullar, in my opinion, is true and untrue. I see that metaphors can be an extremely good thing. Communication between a patient and doctor is vital to helping one. Without proper communication, it’s is hard for the patient to properly understand what exactly is happening to them. Metaphors used, wether it be military or not, can better stranslate a message than using difficult medical terminology. The evidence presented is very subjective. I feel it is extremely difficult to examine ones emotion based of off outside sources. The human brain is very complex. One persons brain can be different from another’s and to compare emotions is very subjective. One key piece pointed out in the last paragraph is that it’s up to the patient how they see the metaphor. The only important part is that the patient see the issue and however they want to attack it.

 

“By describing a treatment as a battle and a patient as a combatant, we set an inherently adversarial tone, and dichotomize outcomes into victory and defeat” The Trouble With Medicine’s Metaphors

This quote shows how metaphors can mentally invade a person and disrupt ones course to great health.

“The danger is that they’ll discard the enterprise before they’ve looked out the window” See Through Words

The dangers behind not comprehending a metaphor can result in poor communication by a medical professional making it hard for a patient to understand.

“And metaphor keeps the mind shaking, rattling and rolling, long after Elvis has left the building”. Metaphorically Speaking” by James Geary

This shows that the mind of a human is aloud a gateway to continue on through the difficult reality of a chronic illness

 

 

Rereading of Michael Erard’s See Through Words

After focusing on new ideas and thinking strategies, I could understand new information presented by Erard.  I understood the qualities that make a metaphor dangerous. Before, I did not fully understand the meaning behind it. Now, I see that the word choice used in a metaphor can completely impact the reader. The words choice can evoke a negative view of the reader forcing the viewer to be uninterested. Your word choice should emotionally connect to the reader so that they want to use it in everyday life.

I also got insight into how a good metaphor can change the point of view of a reader. When you form a metaphor, you want the reader to accept the true meaning behind it. You want the reader to change the way they think about the two subjects being examined. The reader should understand a new concept or understand more about the subject.

The concept of a metaphor as a category was also understood better. I see how two general topics being compared can help the reader. Being general will help with understanding of the metaphor. When the reader understands the metaphor they will want to use it and show other people how intellectual they are.  When Erard talks about the paint brush and pump, I understood how the two connected and could be make into a metaphor.

Glossing the text was also a major component to me understanding the text. Using a dictionary to find the meaning of new words let me understand what Erard was trying to communicate to the reader. One word that I did not understand fully was “Enron.” Looking up this word helped me better understand the connection between the word and his passage. Glossing is a good technique as it forces the reader to explore more behind the text, as it did for me.

 

See Through Words By: Michael Erard

The article brought to life many possibilities behind a metaphor. The point that caught my attention was that many generalities help us define complex things. We can look at a lawyer being a shark. Two very general nouns that when put together expand the meaning of what a lawyer is. The creative part behind a metaphor can be filled deep withing meaning or just a drop of meaning. That is what makes a metaphor so amazingly awesome. Anyone could decode a metaphor and understand the message that is being spoken, written, or shown.

Another mind blowing idea shown in Michael Erard’s article was that a metaphor is more than just a sentence describing a thing. Using metaphors can help discover and solve issues within. Metaphors are seen as just figurative language in the English language but scientists can use metaphors to decode issues by thinking in a different way. Everything in the world is not all black and white, yet a diverse use of colors and combinations that have yet to be found. Metaphors help the process of figuring out how things work.

Lastly, another key part of the article was how a metaphor can come to be.  The fact that you need to fail to succeed is powerful to achieving a good metaphor. You need to direct the attention of the viewer to a place that they have not thought of before. Doing so will result in a much better understanding.  Being direct can be good but also could be a bad thing when construction a metaphor.  You need to provide context clues and background information to be able to successfully trans,it your message. I never understood how difficult it could be to make a comparison that could lead to bigger possibilities.

 

My first impression of ePortfolio was that this is a wonderful platform to display all of my work over the semester. It will be nice to look back and see how my work has changed over time. I am looking forward to see how my blogs get better and better with this website. The layout of this website is also very nice. I like how we have a custom page that we can personalize and make our own. Google Drive and Word do not have this special touch to it. Hopefully ePortfolio will come in handy when I get older. Using it now will not help me become familiar with the website.