Final Project – Lok-See Lam

My Research Based Argument was: “How have women breaking their stereotypes?”

I assessed the large gap between men and women in society today, in several fields, from the home, to the film industry, to social media. Women have been stricted by stereotypes against them, believing that we are not as good as men. But in my research, it proves that this stereotype does not hold true. Women, when given the chance, are more successful in the film industry than men.

I really enjoyed doing the research for this assingment. I found a TED talk for my research that provide many statistics on how the film industry is extremely hard for women to get into, in every position from director to lead actress. I was shocked when I found out the correlation the movies we watch have on the emotions and the choices we make. I also was impressed by the amount of older women on social media, changing the stereotypes on aging.

Style imitating (Lok-See Lam)

It was a normal morning, until it wasn’t anymore. I got a message from Carmen, she wanted me to tell our coach she wouldn’t be able to make practice today. I thought nothing of it until my coach asked, “is everything alright?” I didn’t know if everything was alright. I didn’t know what was happening, until I did. It was an indirect message verified by another friend. Carmen’s mom had passed away that morning. I was shocked. I was in disbelief. I was in tears. For the first time at an age where I was old enough to understand death, I had lost someone I cared about. I learned that when a death catches you by surprise, it makes all the difference. It makes the grief one hundred times worse.

Paulo Coelho Style Imitation:

“THE BOY’S NAME WAS SANTIAGO. DUSK was falling as the boy arrived with his hear at an abandoned hurch. The roof had fallen in long ago, and an enormous sycamore had grown on th espot where the sacristy had once stood. He decided to spend the night there. He saw to it that all the sheep entered through the runined gate, and then laid some planks across it to prevent the flock from wandering away during the night…He swept the floor with his jacket and lay down, using the book he had just finished reading as a pillow. He told himself that he would have to start reading thicker books: they lasted longer, and made more comfortable pillows.”

It was early evening and class had just ended. The students rush out of classrooms, piling into the elevator making their way down to the first floor and out the building. Everyone squeezes themselves into the 6 train, same as always during evening rush hour. Everyone is eager to go home, not just the students, the passengers leaving work, too. They all make their daily commute home just in time to join their family for dinner at seven o’clock.

Day 19: Research Process (Lok-See Lam)

In the reading, Finding Evidence by Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz, the several methods of acquiring evidence to persuade for the argument being made were provided and explained. One key point was the timeliness of the evidence, whether the time and place the evidence is from matches the time and place of the argument. The two key ways to obtain data and evidence from research is through the library and online. The library has collections of books, magazines, newspapers, audiotapes, videotapes, artwork, and photos for finding evidence. Likewise, the library’s computer has far more resources than a personal online search because there are important resources held in the library’s system that is not accessible from the web. Two key things when finding evidence is to know how current the sources are in regard to the argument and to gain more information and knowledge of the argument than will be needed. The other key way to obtain research information is through the internet. Several key differences that would help narrow down a search were explained including the vast difference in sources that will be provided based on the use of and, or and not. Several other ways to gain evidence would be to collect data on your own through performing experiments, making observations, conducting interviews, using questionnaires to conduct surveys, and drawing up person experience.

In Chelsea Booth’s Under My Thumb, she explains the immense sexual bias and inequality in the music world. She begins with a personal experience and continues to explain how females lack credibility in their statements in the music industry. She provides evidence of how the teaching of music and its history lacks any mention of female musicians. She then changes the focus of the piece with a personal example of being sexually assaulted. She follows this with statistics of frequent sexual assault and harassment experienced by women taking place at music festivals.

Day 18: Manifesto (Lok-See Lam)

In George Saunders’s “Manifesto,” Saunders describes many horrors of humanity, some that happen day to day, and others that one could only hope to never happen, but still do. The dark imagery brings the reader to chills, reflecting upon the severity of some but normality of others. Saunders’s argument is that in spite of all the crime and tragedies people see and experience directly or hear about around the world, we can still live out each day with hope because although there is evil in the world, there is more good.

George Saunders’s purpose in writing “Manifesto” is to make it known to those who participate in any of these horrors and crimes, they are not going to overpower those who are not participating in the horrible acts. In his final sentences, he states that there is far more good in the world than there is evil, therefore, evil will never prevail.

Day 17 (Lok-See Lam)

In the reading, “Researching and Making Claims” by Seth Graves, it is explained that expanding our knowledge of something also expanse our capacity for emotion regarding the topic thus relating to research. According to Graves, as we research a topic, the research acts as a check-and-balance system to our claims. The most critical part of making a claim is the credibility of the claim, how believable is it? Based on the study statistics Graves provides, the credibility of claims can be influenced by the vocabulary and voice used to deliver the claim.

“Learning more about a topic expands your capacity for emotion” – I believe that this statement is very true in that there are many instances where a person who is well educated in a certain topic can make a compelling, well support, and impassioned argument. Likewise, the opposite is true, where one who knows little of a topic may not have any strong opinions on the idea.

In the reading, “The Research Process” by Seth Graves, Lucas Corcoran, and Jamal Belmihoub, it is further explained that research does not only take place in a college setting when a research paper is assigned. Research is like analysis, making an inquiry. Research can be done on every action that one takes by questioning why and how. From there, one question leads to another and a research is in progress.

“…we can say that research aims to defamiliarize things and to see them from a whole new perspective.” – This is an enlightening statement in my opinion. Things that we see everyday and become familiar with all seem mundane and basic after some time. However, that doesn’t mean that research cannot be done. Once we defamiliarize it, we can start questioning each and every bit of it, and who would’ve known that we’d have so many questions for something that we thought was so normal and simplistic?

Revision (Lok-See Lam)

“…For most of us revision is the only road to success.” Revision is an inevitable stepping stone in writing a good paper. Through the development of ideas, revision is a crucial step in every good writing. I’d like to think of this like finding a job, where your final complete paper is like your final secure job at the peak of your career, that you start at around age 40-50 and remain at until retirement. Meanwhile, all your previous jobs from when you graduated college to the final job are stepping stones like revision. At these stepping stones, your building work experience, insight, and reflection that will all lead to and benefit your final task, the job or your final paper.
A metaphor I use to think of revisions is creating a recipe. Creating a recipe is like writing a paper, making something out of nothing but concepts and elements to add. Because I am well versed in the baking aspect of the culinary world, I’m going to use a cake recipe as an example. Lets say that we’re creating a chocolate cake recipe as a metaphor of writing an essay. In efforts to create a good recipe compared to all the others out there, we must go through trial and error, adjusting ratios, and taste testing. Each time we bake a new batch its like another draft, and each taste test is like our peers reading over our writing. When we adjust the recipe, the amount of butter, sugar, flour, and eggs, it’s our revision. Just like we adjust the ratio of the ingredients, we adjust the content of our paper, where things belong, where there’s too much of one idea, where there’s not enough and needs explanation. So just like we add or reduce the amounts of each ingredient in our cake recipe to make it delicious, we elaborate or omit ideas and bits of our writing in our paper in order to make it the best that it can be.
“A piece of writing is never finished.” Just like how we as humans are not perfect, our writing pieces are never finished. To say that it is finished at and given point is to say that it is the best that it can possibly be. But is it? Is the writing the best that it can ever be, or is it only the best that we could make it in the time (time-frame) that we have given ourselves to get it done. Similar to the popular saying, “You learn something new everyday,” we can always improve our paper just as we can always acquire more information, even when we think we’ve reached 100%. So long as we spend more time looking at it, whether with a cleared head or new set of eye, there are always changes to be made.

Day 13: Anzaldúa and Naylor (Lok-See Lam)

In the first reading, How to Take a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldúa, the author writes about her struggles in language speaking as a Hispanic woman speaking multiple dialects, some only accepted within a certain region or among a certain group of people. She grew up being told to speak the American language of English and was scolded for speaking Spanish. Then, as an adult teaching High School students, she was reprimanded for teaching students Chicano literature. She stated that her language is her identity, therefore, if her language is illegitimate, then she cannot accept the legitimacy of herself.

The second reading by Gloria Naylor titled The Meanings of a Word uses the word “nigger” as an example of how a word used in writing can have multiple meanings compared to when it is spoken based on the person speaking, the tone, and the context. While spoken by a non-black person, the word has a strong derogatory meaning signifying worthlessness. However, the black community has turned the meaning of the word around to symbolize the complexity of themselves as human beings. Varying based on who the word are spoken by, the word could mean strength in some cases and complimenting in other ways.

From The Meanings of a Word I now understand why people within a black community frequently use the word “nigger”, but when said by a non-black is extremely offensive. Thinking closesly, I now recall many instances in which words could have completely opposing meaning based upon context and the speaker.

Day 12: Alexie and Tan (Lok-See Lam)

, ,In the story, “Superman and Me,” a young Indian boy living on an Indian preserve in Washington state was heavily influenced by his father’s intrigue and love for reading. At a young age, before he learned to read, he understood the idea of a paragraph as “a fence that held words,” and the words in the “paragraph worked together for a common purpose.” He began seeing the whole world in terms of paragraphs which led to his early reading and advanced reading abilities when attending school. However, there existed a stigma that “Indian children were expected to be stupid…expected to fail in the non-Indian world.” Therefore, “those who failed were ceremonially accepted by other Indians and appropriately pitied by non-Indians.” The Indian boy refused to be part of the stigma, he kept reading anything and everything with words, in an effort to save his life. Breaking down the barrier that “writing was something beyond Indians,” the boy grew up to become a writer and occasionally visited schools to teach young Indian children to write, in order to save their lives.

In Amy Tan’s piece titled Mother Tongue, Tan begins with describing how her “tone”, or use of English, changes when she speaks to her mother compared to when she speaks to her husband. After providing an example of something her mother said, Tan explains that as a range of people listens to her mother speaks, she receives different levels of understanding from each; from understanding everything to understanding nothing, and everything in-between. Because of her mother’s “broken” English, Tan often took on the role of assisting her mother with communication. Tan further explains the possibility of her mother’s English limiting her possibilities in understanding and language skills. For example, she describes how she often struggled on word analogies and English portions of standardized exams. However, after even being discouraged and told that her writing was one of her weakest attributes, Tan majored in English and became a writer in nonfiction and fiction. Her writing and vocabulary comprised of “all the Englishes she grew up with,” simple, broken and watered down. Unshaken by the critic’s comments about her first book, she old cared about her mother’s verdict after reading the book: “So easy to read.”

Day 11: Literacy Narrative

In the introduction of (re)Making Language by Seth Graves, we are given a historical background of the rise in Gothic fiction which led to increased literacy. During the late 1700s, towards the end of the Enlightenment Era, while interests in sciences and humanity rose, “reading and writing literacy rates expanded.” News, stories, and ideas spread extremely fast in this revolutionary time. However, the vast acquisition of knowledge led to the uncovering of horrors, lies, and all the truths. The reading goes on to use Dr. Fankenstein as a suitable example of the situation, particularly because of its origin during the time period.

The reading transitions into the idea of “language acquisition in social and global context. Language is the symbolic bridge that connects us all to the rest of the world. Under the title Language, Discourse, and Literacy, the definition of language, discourse, and literacy is explained. Language, though often thought of as grammar, is actually the “interaction recognized by a specific community,” including images, gestures, computer codes, or emojis. Language is always adapting to the way that we use it. Discourse is defined as “a group [sharing] a common set of language-use practices,” and literacy is the “understanding of and ability to participate in the literacy practices of a discourse community.” Literacy can be shaped by “our understanding of what is possible.”

Thesis and Review (Lok-See Lam)

To create a good thesis for a paper or any essay, first consider the thesis as a question. The thesis can be represented as the macro- question, or the main/major question, while each paragraph can have a micro-questions leading up to the macro question. Follow the three questions: “what do you see? What do you make of it? Why does it matter?” to create a good thesis. The thesis should not be able to be answered with just a yes or no, yet it can’t be too broad being subjective to each person’s opinion. The most important thing is that the thesis is the most crucial part of the essay and the rest of the paper should support the thesis. However, if the subsequent paragraphs don’t support the thesis, the thesis can be changed to be supported by the evidence.

When peer editing writing pieces, the reader should keep in mind that they are only one of many readers to the paper. Therefore, the peer editor should not be rewriting the paper on the writer’s behalf. When editing, provide constructive criticism that’s honest but not too harsh, give detailed comments of what needs to be fixed and give praise for good points in the writing.