JOURNAL #1
Handed in.
JOURNAL #2
At my high school it was required that we took an English course each of our four years. Starting freshman year we would write drafts for 1-3-1’s, peer-review, and then submit a final essay at the end. This basic process continued throughout my high school career, and ultimately by senior year it just became natural. Now don’t get me wrong, there were definitely essays that I threw together the night before and hoped they wouldn’t be completely ripped up, but I’m pretty sure everyone has been there. The peer- review process was not always necessarily a part of the class time itself, but sometimes it just consisted of having one of my friends read through and make some edits. Revision would come after a friend had read through the paper and made some notes. I would usually spend some time reading through their notes, and reading my essay out loud to make sure that the sentences I had put together sounded good. Overall, I would say that this whole process ended up working out pretty well for me in high school, and some of the good habits that I acquired then will hopefully carry over.
JOURNAL #3
I found the “The Art of Quoting” reading to be quite helpful. I have always struggled with finding efficient ways to integrate good quotations into my writing. The chapter does a nice job providing good examples on how to work a quotation into your piece. The most important thing to remember when it comes to quotations is not just sticking random ones in your writing. The chapter called these “hit- and- run” quotations. I had never heard them described in this way, but the name fits the situation perfectly. Sometimes when I am writing a paper, I find myself just putting in random quotations in order to fulfill the requirement, and not necessarily because they support my argument in any particular way. After reading this chapter I will be more cautious on the ways in which I am using quotations in my writing, and the role they play in supporting my paper overall.
JOURNAL #4
“The End of Food” written by Lizzie Widdicombe tells the story of Soylent’s creator and entrepreneur, Rob Rhinehart. Widdicombe writes how Rhinehart got his start after being fed up with spending money on food that wasn’t even good for him. Once figuring out that he could create a combination of different essential ingredients, he quickly switched tracks to pursue this new invention. The appearance of Soylent “looked like gooey lemonade”, but that didn’t stop Rhinehart from choosing to live off it. Widdicombe traveled out to LA, where Rhinehart and his team had relocated their offices after Soylent started to become more popular. Rhinehart takes Widdicombe on a tour of the “Soylent headquarters” before he takes her out to meet with one of his fellow food technologists named Ethan Brown at his food truck. Brown is the CEO of his own company called Beyond Meat. Rinehart and Brown shared similar ideas about replacing food with other potentially beneficial ingredients, however, their ideas about fully substituting food came across as different. While they are at the truck talking to various passersby of the Whole Foods parking lot, Rhinehart describes that his plan for Soylent is to be an “over- all food substitute”. Before ending her visit with Reinhart they head over to Caltech to meet with some of Reinhart’s D.I.Y. users. Some of the students Reinhart talked to shared their modified Soylent recipes, and Reinhart was intrigued by what they had modified because he and his team had modified the recipe along the way as well. Reinhart shares that having these D.I.Y users only adds to the Soylent experience, and he watches them carefully to see if there are any modifications that can be made to make his product better.
I found the article interesting because I personally have not ever tried or researched meal replacement drinks. Drinking something that would essentially fill you up is definitely cool, but I don’t think I would be able to do it myself. I found Rhinehart’s point slightly confusing at times because towards the beginning he states that “Soylent isn’t coming for your Sunday potlucks. It’s coming for our frozen quesadillas”. However, towards the end of the article it sounds more as though he is pushing Soylent to become something that people drink as a complete replacement. I would also have to question some things about how Soylent is really getting your body all of the necessary nutrients it needs. Soylent seems to work out for individuals who don’t exert much effort during their days. The article does not mention Soylent being beneficial when it comes to adding in physical activity. When you are exerting your body more than just a desk job or studying I would question if Soylent would be able to compensate. I would also struggle with giving up the taste of food in general. It would definitely take me a bit to get used to the gooey drink as a replacement to a bowl of pasta or a piece of bread. I believe a lot of other people would struggle with this as well. Although Soylent is a cool concept, I am not quite sure if it would carry enough weight to have a lot of people being drinking it instead of eating .
JOURNAL #5
After reading the “They Say, I Say” about “Entering the Conversation”, I have a better understanding on how to incorporate other people’s viewpoints and ideas into my own piece. This reading assignment talks a lot about the way in which you introduce a different opinion into your essay. The way in which you make the tone sound the more or less likely the reader will be open to the ideas that you are presenting either in support of your own argument or against it. The chapter also had different templates that were included to help incorporate different ideas into your essay. I found these helpful because I always struggle with working my sentences as best to introduce quotes and other opinions from a different text. All in all, I found this chapter as good information for starting conversations and including opinions in your text, but also incorporating your own.
JOURNAL #6
file:///C:/Users/kdgor/OneDrive/Documents/Food%20Jessica%20Meyer.pdf
file:///C:/Users/kdgor/OneDrive/Documents/Food%20Mike%20Spill.pdf
JOURNAL #7
During our peer- review session Jessie provided me with some good global comments and suggestions that I think really helped add more to my paper. She pointed out different areas where I could elaborate more on what I had already mentioned. For the most part I needed up adding a sentence, or I reconstructed a sentence to give more clarity. I found this was quite helpful because sometimes I struggle with making sure my thoughts are complete and make sense to the reader. The best global comments/ suggestions that I offered were probably for Mike’s paper. Mike was having some difficulty figuring out what his argument really was, and how to get his thesis to support his argument. I offered many points in order to help him figure out what he wanted to say, and also in our peer- review offered some ideas to maybe switch the order of some of his paragraphs. I thought that our peer- review went pretty well, but I suppose it would have been more helpful if I had had some more sentence level corrections on my paper. When I was revising my paper afterwards I found that some of my sentences weren’t making as much sense as I originally thought. It is hard to pick up on this sometimes because you are reading your own work, so if my group had corrected some more of these errors it would have been more helpful. For the other papers I probably could’ve given Mike more direction as to how he could change his sentence structure and order of his paragraphs. We talked about this a lot for his paper in our peer- review, but for some reason I didn’t write as many comments to help him with this directly. Basically I feel as though Jessie did a really good job reading my paper critically, and giving me good suggestions on how to elaborate on it and make my argument stronger. All in all, other than some of the sentence level structural errors, I think we did a good job covering each aspect of our papers.
JOURNAL #8
I found “Starting With What Others are Saying” as a pretty helpful passage. It mentions how the order in which you mention different ideas throughout your paper, and how important this order really is. The construction and structure of the paper are essential for introducing other sources into your paper. The actual templates for introducing the different situations is helpful. The templates show the distinction between the introduction of different situations. The passage also talks about “return sentences”. This point is also a helpful reminder because I feel as though a lot of the time it is very easy to introduce something, and sort of leave it hanging. The return sentences make the paper flow better, and give it a more organized structure so that it easier to follow.
JOURNAL #9
Most of the time that I spent after the peer- review was working on elaborating on some of my statements. I elaborated on a couple different points both in my introduction and throughout my body paragraphs to give more background to the point I was trying to make. The drafting/ revising process really was not all that different compared to the papers I had written in the past. I took the time and reworked my paragraphs and sentences on multiple occasions so I could read what I had written with fresh eyes. My approach to this project fits the expectations for this class because I took the time with this pieces, and really worked to make sure that it would flow and make sense to the reader. I made sure that my drafts were not only a progression of my thoughts, but also a progression of ideas as I continued to structure and develop the final draft for the paper.
JOURNAL #10
“When I flipped it, I didn’t have the courage to do it that way I should have. You can always pick it up…The only way you learn to flip things is just to flip them”(Page 5).
This passage highlights an interesting perspective that I don’t think I would have picked up on. In the growing world, the mistakes we make seem to account for so much more than they used to. The way we react to making mistakes translates to the kitchen setting. You don’t have to be completely confident on the outcome of a situation to just give it a shot. Julia Child’s show is uncut, and all of her mistakes are put right out there. People are less likely to take a chance if they are unsure of the outcome, unlike in Julia’s show where she takes that shot on live television. With the chance of something being messed up or not perfect, people rather not try at all. This lack of effort to experience and learn more about cooking is what is ultimately going to lead to the end of cooking for everyone.
“Great many Americans are spending in considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves” (Page 4).
This passage really encompasses what I believe the author was trying to get across as the point of this entire paper. The fact that as Americans we are content with simply watching people prepare food instead of taking the time to prepare it ourselves. The American culture is shifting away from one in which we are doing things for the experience, and more as one that simply watches the experience happen. This could translate into other aspects of life as well. With technology and social media at a peak, people can now sit on their phones at their house and watch things happen on a screen. This directly relates to the point that the author is bringing up about cooking because people are happy enough just watching it from the comfort of their coach as opposed to actually experiencing it themselves. People are focused primarily on the screens and not living in actual moments.
“We’re all looking for someone else to cook for us. The next American cook is going to be the supermarket. Takeout from the supermarket, that’s the future. All we need now is the drive through supermarket” (Page 20).
This passage has the same vibe as the one I talked about previously, however, it has a more direct approach. This statement is very direct in the sense that it is straight up calling supermarkets as the future. When it says that supermarkets are the next greatest cook it is referring to the processed food found in the supermarkets. This processed food that we find in the supermarkets is not only unhealthy, but it is also supposed to make the cooking process easier for our everyday lives. The goal of the supermarket industry is to simplify living for its customers. Although this is the the goal, people have a hard time seeing the effect of cutting out the preparation of food and relying solely supermarkets. The shift in society could lead to decrease in health but also problems within the economy because of this increased surplus of mass produced foods.
JOURNAL #11
In the passage “What is Motivating the Reader”, it talks about figuring out the argument of the essay and reading the conversation which the reader is presenting. Deciphering the conversation is one of the major parts of reading the text because it requires you to understand “what views the author is responding to and what the author’s own argument it” (TS/IS 175). When it comes to the more difficult passages this task can become even more difficult. Interpreting the language of more difficult texts takes practice, but this passage tries to make it easier by describing the process you should follow. I found this helpful because it talks about putting the passage into your own words in order to better understand the message it is trying to portray. Translating into your own language makes it easier to understand because it now lines up with your language. This can making reading the conversation, even if it is a difficult text, easier.
JOURNAL #12
“The way we think about other species often defies logic.”
This is the very first sentence of the article, and I think it sets the tone for how the paper will be read. Herzog has difficulty understanding the ethical approach when it comes to animals, and I think this sentence really opens up the paper.
“In the weeks after I was accused of feeding kittens to boas, I found myself thinking more about the paradoxes associated with our relationships with animals and less about my animal behavior studies.”
Herzog seems to progress his thinking and ideas as the essay continues to develop. At this point in his piece he is beginning to come to terms with how complicated the ethics behind animals really is.
“Like most people, I am conflicted about our ethical obligations to animals. The philosopher Strachan Donnelley calls this murky ethical territory “the troubled middle.” Those of us in the troubled middle live in a complex moral universe.”
This quote encompasses Herzog’s opinion entirely. Throughout the article Herzog is making different arguments and statements regarding his stance on the ethics associated with animals. This quote serves as a cumulation of all his statements and sums up his opinion.
JOURNAL #13
Paper two was a easy paper to write after I thought through the connections that I wanted to make within it. I found Pollan’s essay to be scattered in the sense that he has a lot going on for one paper. However, I feel as though I ended up using this to my advantage because I worked to incorporate each of the different aspects he was trying to highlight. After reading Pollan’s essay I was able to pick out three major themes that I knew I wanted to tie back to the favorite meal essays. As for the favorite meal essays, I went through almost all of them to find the pieces that would fit the best for the points that I was trying to make. These three topics that I drew from were: tradition, the definition of cooking, and mistakes. These were my original starting places for my paragraphs. I managed to relatively stick to these general themes throughout my paragraphs. It wasn’t until all of my body paragraphs had been put together and connected that I realized the major connection that I had unknowingly made between all of my favorite meal essays. This connection was the feeling of home. Once I made this connection I went back through my essay, changed my thesis and developed the paper a little bit more so that it really reflected this piece.
JOURNAL #14
When I first read “Considering the Lobster” I did not agree with what Wallace had to say about lobsters, and I still disagree just as much. Writing a couple of papers about food in between doesn’t change my opinion about something like this essay. The notes I made the first time I read through this piece still seem accurate. Reading this a second time has almost made me more aware of how much I disagree with it. The arguments that he is trying to make about the pain that lobsters supposedly feel is impossible to know, and there is no good scientific evidence to back up what he writes about. Wallace is a sophisticated writer for sure, and he is good at making his ideas come across in a different way. However, none of his ideas really seem at that murky or unreachable. If anything the ideas are just not necessarily worth reaching.
JOURNAL #15
1.Foer is writing how when you give up meat you are actually losing more than just meat itself, but essentially you are losing the experience that comes along with enjoying it with friends. Every culture has different foods that make up what it is as a society. In our society, meat has a very large role. Giving up meat is more than just giving up the pleasure of eating it, but now you are giving up part of society as well. Before giving up something like meat it is very important to understand exactly what you value most because you are most likely losing more than you are gaining from the experience. As time goes by, the experiences you had with meat will also be forgotten. Meat is responsible for bringing us together on different levels, even if we don’t necessarily realize it. By giving up meat Foer is losing the pleasure of it, but he will gain other ways in order to carry the memories of the food he cherishes with him.
2.I know some people personally who have made the decision to become vegetarian for different reasons. From what they say and the what Foer is trying to get across in this statement, vegetarian food is not really all that bad. With all the food chemicals and genetically modified food that we have become so used to eating, food that is considered to be vegetarian does not really taste as different as I believe everyone believes that it does. There are definitely ways in which you can substitute the foods that you enjoy so much, so that you still have the memory and feeling of that food even as a vegetarian. Personally, I would have to think very long and hard before becoming a vegetarian myself just because I enjoy a lot of meats, but with the options that we have today it wouldn’t be as hard as it was then.
JOURNAL #16
After reading this section “Playing the Naysayer in Your Text”, from “They Say, I Say”, it was made clear how important it is to include a naysayer point of view in order to make certain arguments and objectives more clear. The section explains how incorporating the skeptical point of view into your writing can really make a drastic difference in the way in which the reader interprets your writing. Including alternative opinions or arguments in your work makes the piece more sophisticated because it shows the reader that you are considering more than one perspective when responding to a topic. Personally, the topic of the paper itself is what makes the inclusion of a naysayer dependent for my writing. In high school I had to write a couple theology papers that I would say included a naysayer in them. The topics that I was writing about in those papers were controversial making the multiple points of view and arguments more evident. After reading this section of “They Say, I Say” I will definitely be more aware of the inclusion of a naysayer in some of my more current pieces. I believe that I appreciate the idea of a naysayer more because of how much it could back up my point.
JOURNAL #17
JOURNAL #18
I was able to finish the majority of my essay before our peer review session, so after the peer review I had more revisions to do compared to actual writing. Thomas provided me with some good feedback about the way I incorporated some of my quotes, and how to incorporate my introductory paragraph into the rest of my paper. When I first started writing this paper I wanted to start it off with some sort of hook that would really draw the reader in. I was a little nervous about the way I incorporated it because I wasn’t sure if it really made sense. However, both Emilee and Thomas both really liked it, and encouraged me to work with it throughout my essay as well. I decided to rethink what exactly i was trying to say in my thesis in order to incorporate more of the general ideas that I mentioned throughout my body paragraphs. I also added to my conclusion paragraph in order to tie it back to my introductory paragraph. Most of the work I did included adding or deleting a sentence here or there in order to lead to a clearer statement of ideas.
