I can’t really remember a time where I procrastinated. I do remember times when I’ve put assignments off, but that is only because I had other assignments and didn’t have choice. Most of the time academic anxiety will get the best of me concerning school and I’ll finish assignments a day ahead of time so I can check and fine tune them the day before they’re due. To meet my goals I write them down, and bullet the steps needed to reach them. I also write down my fears because I’ve found those are a great motivator for me personally.

What is Academic writing? There are many different writing styles and purposes for writing in the world of academic literature, usually contingent upon one another. However, there are several key elements all academic work should possess. Academic writing is generally classified was written work targeted at a very specific audience, with an assumed based of knowledge on the topics that will be discussed. Good academic writing proves an argument through reason and rational, making as few assumption as possible. The author should demonstrate a well rounded understanding of the argument on all fronts and build upon pre-existing knowledge through the use of credible sources or a substantial amount of tested personal research and analysis. Academic literature should also show an awareness of views opposite its own and be researched well enough to constantly support its claim against opposition.

 Although he may be best known for being Warren Buffett’s mentor, Ben Graham was also an extremely capable investor who was very success during his money management career. Known as “The Father of Value Investing”, Graham was also a professor at Columbia University when he authored The Intelligent Investor as a guide for those who traded securities and wanted in increase their return on invest.

The Intelligent Investor is for those who have already be introduced to the world of economics and finance. If you’re reading the Intelligent Investor it is assumed you are already familiar with the world of investing. A casual reader would quickly find themselves overwhelmed by financial terms, investment principles, and economic concepts (fair outside of common knowledge) mentioned that Graham expects the reader to be familiar with if they’ve picked up his book.

Graham’s strategies are based on logic and reasoning “An investment operation is one which, upon thorough analysis, promises safety of principal and an adequate return. Operations not meeting this requirements are speculation.” (Graham, 34) Graham’s ideas are based on thorough financial evaluations of a company’s books. His work is famous among investors, being one of the first investors to solely use financial analysis to successfully invest in the market.

 The investor’s primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at stable prices. Market movements are important to him in a practical sense, because they alternately create low price levels which he would be wise to buy and high price levels at which he certainly should refrain from buying and probably would be wise to sell. It is far from certain that the typical investor should regularly hold off buying until low market levels appear because this may involved a long wait, very likely the loss of income, and possibly missing of investment opportunities

In this except Graham’s makes a claim and offers multiple pieces of evidence in support of it. In addition to developing strategies based on carefully assessing the value of companies with a tried process, Graham also developed several mathematical formulas to help investors calculated the value of a stock based on various market shifter, which he explains in the Intelligent Investor.

Jesus the Jew is a Jewish Studies course offered at The City College of New York. While enrolled in the course I had to write a paper on the Jewishness of Jesus. My claim was “Jesus practiced and taught what he believed to be the proper version of Judaism. He had his own idea of how to remain faithful, while retaining traditional Jewish values.” (Williams)

I began my essay by pointing out that early judaism was focused around the covenant. The covenant can be used as a valid baseline for distinguishing early Judaism. Judaism had a strong influence on Jesus’s thoughts and message. During the time he was alive it is unlikely that he wouldn’t have been unaffected by the idea of covenant practice being that it was the dominant ideology of the time. Tom Holmen’s article Jesus, Judaism, and the Covenant aims to highlight Jesus and his Jewishness through his relationship with the covenant and covenant path searching. Path searching is the process of trying to figure out the best way to live in obedience with the covenant. Jews focusing on specific practices and beliefs in accordance with the covenant. Through covenant path searching jews discovered how to be faithful and adjusted their lives accordingly.

Irvin list The Understanding of Key Disciplinary Concepts and Strategies for Synthesizing, Analyzing, and Responding Critically to New Information as things that should be demonstrated in college level literary task.

“An analysis breaks a subject apart to study it closely, and from this inspection, ideas for writing emerge. When writing assignments call on you to analyze, they require you to identify the parts of the subject (parts of an ad, parts of a short story, parts of Hamlet’s character), and then show how these parts fit or don’t fit together to create some larger effect or meaning” (Irvin, 11)

Understanding the covenant and the relationship Jewish people had with it and understanding Jesus relationship with the convent then being able to connect the toward to gain an understand of jesus relationship with the jewish people/faith demonstrate bother. My essay is also now for a select group of people. My essay is also organized. I begin by making a claim, the paragraphs that follow all support this claim by tying together different pieces of evidence. My essay also cites several sources all of which are after the essay in an annotated bibliography.

“Academic prose is, ideally, impersonal, written by one disinterested mind for other equally disinterested minds. But, because it’s intended for a very small audience of hyper-knowledgeable, mutually acquainted specialists” (Rothman, 3) Both my essay Graham essay and mind are examples of this, being extremely focused and require background knowledge in order to fully understand…

Citation:

Irvin, Lennie L. “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?”. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. 1st ed. 2004. 3-17. Web.

Summary:

Irvin’s goal is to help introduce students to high level writing and provide a loose writing guide that will make the transition from high school level writing to college writing easier for those entering university. We begin by debunking some common myths about writing. The author then discusses the tools the reader will need in order to write a well rounded college paper. Next we go into the different types of papers, and what is expected out of the reader depending on the type of question asked. We end with a list of elements that should be present in one way of another in all academic literature.

Evaluation:

This will serve as a guide as to how I should write my essays. I can use this information to explain the structures and purposes for academic writing. It will also help me understand where I succeeded and/or failed in my pervious work.

Citation:

Rothman, Joshua. “Why Is Academic Writing So Academic?”. The New Yorker. The New Yorker. June 2017. www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/why-is-academic-writing-so-academic. Sept. 2017.

Summary:

This article is Rothmans take on academic writing and how it got to were it is today. Journalism seems friendly because it has to be inviting, the audience is often a stranger. Academic writing although it may seem colorless and impersonal is actually one of the most personal writing styles, the author is addressing a small group of knowledgable individuals who don’t need to be convinced the argument worth caring about. Nicholas Kristof called out professors in an article he wrote for the New York Times. Kristof claims professors “marginalized” themselves. Their need to keep academia exclusive has lead to less public intellectuals on university campuses. Rothman believes academics don’t write this way to keep others out. Professor write in a competitive genre for very small groups, with a large amount of influence in their field and possibly on the professors individual career.

Evaluation:

This article helps me understand the importance tailoring my writing for a specific audience and how to be more effective in targeting my work. The majority of my writing in college will be extremely focused and for a specific audience.

Citation:

Orwell, George. “Why I Write,”. The Complete Works of George Orwell. 1947. http://www.george-orwell.org/Why_I_Write/0.html, Accessed 4 March 2009.

Summary:

We get a look at what shaped the author into the writer he is today. The majority of his childhood was spent in solitude, because of his relationship with his imaginary friends and habit for telling stories. After a brief look at his upbringing the author list why he thinks anyone writes. The reasons are ego, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, political purpose. Orwell’s goal is to make political writing an art, but still he cannot ignore his need to create an aesthetic experience for the reader.

Evaluation:

This article helped me understand the importance of purpose and analyzing what the goal is when writing. This will help me focus my writing. It will also help me in understanding why I’ve included certain sentences or chose certain words in my work and what should do going forward.

I will be analyzing my “Principles of Marketing” final paper….

Ethos, Pathos, Logos

Ethos: I decided to include information from a study done by the “The Content Marketing Institute.” I also cited famous Marketer Seth Godin before going into one of my body paragraphs to help support my argument. I also used information from a study that was done by Nike that discussed how important the power of branding has been for them.

Ethos highlights ones accomplishments or status, in the hopes that these will create a sense of trustworthiness or establish authority before making their points. This would be like Hans Zimmer teaching a class on how to score films. In the introduction of the course Has would begin buy telling the class how many movies he’s scored, expanding on the more popular films, and going down the long list of awards he’s won for his work. Being that Has is speaking to students who would like to score movies one day, his resume is bound to impress and excited them or at the very least bring him credibility. This method could enhance any argument, how upfront or subtle the speaker is in his delivery is dependent on the crowd.

Pathos moves opinion by triggering an emotional response. This appeal can be enhanced when taking into account timing and audience demographic. This tactic has been a utilized by politicians, and leader of similar form throughout history. In the beginning it was assumed Donald Trump’s run for President was nothing more than a move targeted at publicity, being that he has made it his business never wander far from our TV screens. Today Donald is president of the most powerful nation on the planet, despite his lack of experience, temperamental behavior, and consistent disregard from the truth. A man who doesn’t believe in global warming, came to power in large part due to a 24/7 new cycle that values sensationalism more than integrity. A group of people who felt marginalized and confused by formal politicians found themselves being able to related to Donald. They found their voice in him filling them with the courage to stand up, despite actually have nothing in common with him. This method is most successful alone with groups who are uninformed and as a result much vulnerable to the charm of a charismatic leader.

Logos convinces ones audience by way of reason. Galileo, astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician discovered that the earth was round. He had more evidence than anyone else during the time of his discovery to support the idea that Earth could be a sphere. Today we acknowledge Galileo’s strides in the sciences. However, during his life Galileo was investigated and ultimately subjected to house arrest for the remainder of his life, his discover threatened the church and more importantly it’s political power. Unfortunately, logos is probably the least likely to convince most. It relies purely on reason and rational. The majority of people form generally form opinions based on intuition and their own past experiences which although limited tend to inform the majority of their decisions. Logos would be most effective when speaking to those who are more educated on the matter and have the ability to view things through a broader lens without carrying any pre-existing unfounded bias into the discussion.

The article begins by asserting “Rhetoric requires understanding a fundamental division between what is communicated through language and how this is communicated.” After this the author lists a number of historical accounts where separating content from form served as a teaching tool and was considered to hold academic value in the eyes of some of the worlds most revered thinkers. While offering this information isn’t of no value the reader is still left without a reason as to why an understanding of the difference between logos and lexis is necessary when studying rhetoric. To accept these examples as direct justification for the claim one would have to assume that the teachers named are absolute authorities when discussing rhetoric, despite lack of support.

Next, the author explains that the split between speech and expression is “artificial and conditional,” attempting to divide these reveals the fundamentally inseparable nature of what and how something is said. After this we are again offered insight on the processes those who attended ancient schools of thought used in their attempt to understand communication in support of the original claim, again it falls short.

The author does say “it is impossible to completely capture the meaning and effect of a thought expressed in any terms other than its original words.” This suggest that the non-verbal aspect of communication is of the same importance as the words themselves depending on the conditions. For the first time the author has given a reason as to why one would support the original claim, however the reader is left with nothing that warrants this assertion. It is also the readers responsibility to assume that the impossibleness of fully capturing the original words suggest verbal communication is more than what is said, the author plays no part in helping make this connection.

The article does recognize that speech trumps expression in importance, when discussing more “substantive topics.”

Continuing, the author uses an extended metaphor hoping it will aid the reader in understanding the relationship between res, verba, and there dependence on one another. After this the article touches on how problematic the original argument is and how controversial it has been throughout history, seeing push back from members of various academic communities. All of this though informative, offers little help in proving the importance of division between speech and form when accessing vocal speech.

The article comes to and end with what is a seemingly modified version of the original claim, having effectively proved nothing

It would appear that the author did a suitable job at establishing and defending his points to a reader unfamiliar with a process for analyzing arguments. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by length, condensed information, and advanced language especially if your’e unfamiliar with the topic. Using the “Toulmin Method” proved useful when examining this article. Most readers would give this article the benefit of the doubt out of confusion assuming the “edu” domain name signified academic value. After an introduction to the “Toulmin Method” I was far more mentally equipped with the tools I needed to accurately access the strength of this article. “Content/Form” lacks structure, makes assumptions, and in the end relies of circular reasoning. Of the three methods we’ve learned so far I feel most comfortable with the “Toulmin Method” however that is subject to change depending on the style of writing. This method reminds me of how logic is used in philosophy to structure or challenge an argument.

 

 

 

Diaz recounts a series of events from a period in his childhood during which his newly immigrated family struggled to maneuver through their new life in America in the face of economic and social hardships. Through this essay the reader is able to gain some insight on Diaz’s relationship with his mother, and an overall better understanding of his family dynamic. Diaz’s initial tone is somewhat simple. This piece was published in The New Yorker, a magazine full of articles stocked with SAT words ready to be picked out by someone whom I imagine is a lot like the real life version of Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada; an added to a collection of words archived in a still fairly unexercised portion of their brain to impress people equally as shallow and/or make up for lack of substance. This demographic might not be use to phrases like “skinny ass” but they’d certainly appreciate a good Raskolnikov reference. For this reason I’m not entirely sure who the intended audience is. Still with all Diaz decides to reveal about his early life with his family after moving to a new country there is no doubt “The Money” is a personal essay.

-Amyri Williams

 

My name is Amyri Williams. I recently transferred from The City College of New York to Baruch College to pursue a B.B.A. in Marketing Management an a minor in Economics and Finance. I’m taking this course in part because it is require but also because I’ve always loved english. My mother made it clear from a young age that being able to communicate my ideas well could bring value to my life as well as other peoples lives.

Writing Goals:

1. I want to expand my knowledge of structure. If one understands how to organize his or her thoughts than it becomes much easier to effectively prove your points. In the past this has also helped me with writer’s block and finding gaps or weak points in my work that may require further research to strengthen.
2. I want to learn more about the art of manipulation in writing. Marketing is all about convincing a person how what you have to offer brings value to them, or reaffirming that belief if already held. Learning how great writers are able put forth a message that persuades the reader without it feeling like a sales pitch interest me.
3. I’d also like to expand my vocabulary, I don’t want language to prevent me from being able to articulate thoughts. Having the ability to communicate ideas is almost as important as being able to manifest them. I see english as a tool that if mastered would help a great deal in my effort to be more expressive.

Amyri Williams