Journal 9

I've learned this semester that I do have a certain writing style. Most of the time I perfer to write in either an explanatory or persuasive tone. I do use much satire in my papers, so that I do not confuse others with it. Also my ideas are pretty straight forward and most everything can be predicted from my introduction paragraph. I feel that in college people need to adapt to whomever they are writing for. Teachers want their students to write for themselves, but they definitely have a preference for certain styles of writing. If they are reminded of their own writing I am sure that they would enjoy and grade the paper with higher remarks. The only thing teachers do not want is plagairism. Throughout this semester though I have found what type of writer I am and it gives me more confidence. It tells me that I know what I am comfortable with and capable of doing. If I had to do something other then explanatory or persuasive writing I might be afraid because that is out of my comfort zone.

Journal 10

Respond to "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". After having researched and written about media, do you agree that the nature of writing, power, and knowledge is changing as technology is increasingly democratized? Does this inform your ePortfolio assignment?'

Yes, I do believe that since the rise of technology, the nature of writing and communication has changed drastically. Because of blogs, social networking sites, and even online restaurant ordering systems have stopped the communication of people face to face, and started a whole new generation of a different form of writing. No longer do people send each other long letters discussing what they have done recently in their lives, instead they write a sentence long "post" on their "wall" for them to "like." It completely changes traditional forms of writing and replaces it with a fake, public form of communication that can be viewed by all. As technology continues to increase, the value of communication and writing decreases at the same rate.

Journal 10

Respond to "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". After having researched and written about media, do you agree that the nature of writing, power, and knowledge is changing as technology is increasingly democratized? Does this inform your ePortfolio assignment?

Yes, I completely agree with this statement. With the use of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, we have forgotten what it is like to communicate with each other face to face. When we think of how to reach someone now a days, most people choose the internet as a way of communication other than talking on the phone. Technology has become a part of our everyday lives. I feel that in a lot of ways, technology distracts us from learning in that we pay more attention to social networks instead of interacting and learning from the world around us. I know that even during class, students are on their phones and lap tops tweeting and facebooking. Although, technology has helped us in various ways as it has made it easier to communicate and also is used for educational purposes. The eportfolio is an example of this in that we have taken the internet and have turned it into an opportunity for our project. This is not a bad thing, it just reflects the fact that internet has become a large part of our lives.

Journal 10

Respond to "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". After having researched and written about media, do you agree that the nature of writing, power, and knowledge is changing as technology is increasingly democratized? Does this inform your ePortfolio assignment?

Yes, i completely agree. I have actually thought this for a while now. Specifically about the new greatly expanding social networks, (facebook, mediafire, twitter) I think they are ruining social interactions between people. Only about 30% of interaction is what people actually say and the rest is facial expressions, inflection of voices...etc. All that is lost with communication on social networks. Plus, personally i think the excitement of talking to a new friend in person or a girl you lost is lost in social networks. Its not as exciting or nerve wrecking and therefore not as rewarding. Also there is not nearly as strong of a connection made. I know I talked to girls by texting, IM, or facebook and our friendship just fizzled so quickly when we didnt talk online. Its not a real social interaction, its not reality.

What have you learned about your own style this semester? Do you agree with Vonnegut’s rules for style? What might you add, change, or remove?

This semester i have learned that i have some really cool ideas, i just need to spend time expanding and fully developing them. I can develop them when I sit down and think about them, but a lot of times i don't think long enough about my ideas or cant express them on paper the way i want. I've realized that if i spend time analyzing texts, and spend time thinking about what i want to say i can come up with some really cool ideas and papers. I do agree with Vonnegut's rules for style, I think he has some really good advice. I myself need to learn how to "have the guts to cut." I think a lot of unimportant information is important to my paper when really it needs to be cut out. I also have trouble realizing what information needs to be cut out and what needs to stay. I feel like I might accidentally cut important information out. Also, i need to learn how to not ramble on. I think i do this a lot, sometimes to lengthen papers to meet length requirements but i need to work on coming up with more important information in some papers. This may just be a need to do more research.

journal 10

i agree completely with the article. the internet has changed our world a lot and we have gone from having to interact with people in reality and now we interact with people through the web. and a huge part of communication is facial expressions and body language, and when on the web its hard to show that expressions so it has major impacts on peoples life that way. i also feel that it does give you a lot of information. i think that our eportfolio just shows how much the internet is in our lives and it makes it much easier to share our work.

Journal 10

I agree with everything that this article is reflecting upon. In fact I would even take the topic to a new level in that google/internet is not only changing the way we think, but it's changing the way we engage and act socially. Since the internet is a gigantic source of information, we no longer are required to socially interact to obtain information. Now, we can virtually obtain all information about anything through the internet in a small amount of time. When asking someone to go on a date, all the joy of personal engagement is gone when a 2-d text comes through asking the very same. All in all, I agree with the article in that google is in fact making us dumb, for we no longer need to seek adults knowledge and textbooks and instead have to seek out information through the internet.

Journal 10

After reading "Is Google Making Us Stupid", I have to completely agree with the author's concerns. Reading for me used to be one of my favorite things, something that I both enjoyed and took pride in. Yes, I'm in college and really don't have time for reading anymore with the mounds of schoolwork I have to finish each week. But, even when I do have time, when I'm on vacation, I find myself lacking the ability to immerse myself in the novel as I once did. Even when watching a movie, I find myself on the internet, it feels like I have ADD at some points. I even find myself asking why should we have to learn so and so. It's not like I'm ever not going to be out of reach of my cell phone, more importantly my mobile web. I can just google it if I don't know the answer. I think this relates to a lot to my inquiry III and my parody of Facebook. I think we as a society and even the entire world need to be more aware of the harmful side affects of the internet.

Respond to "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". After having researched and written about media, do you agree that the nature of writing, power, and knowledge is changing as technology is increasingly democratized? Does this inform your ePortfolio assignment?

The first thing I found ironic about this article is that it's long enough that I found myself drifting from concentrating...I'll admit it, I was simultaneously reading the article, listening to iTunes, and flipping back and forth between 3 conversations on facebook...so I'm definitely busted for falling into the whole technology whirlwind. The internet is definitely a huge source of distraction, and because Google's goal is to make things as easy and accessible, it's also in turn easy to feel like we don't have to try hard to focus on the material...everything becomes geared towards making things as quick and easy as possible. It also mentions that having so much information at our fingertips creates a false sense of wisdom...which I somewhat agree with; we assume that we know about so many things because we can easily read about them and gain information without having to go out and actually experience them. The internet tends to diminish our real connection with the outside world and replace it with a false sense of true knowledge and experience. In that sense, I don't know that Google is really making us stupid, but I do think it's making us careless...we feel less compelled to explore new experiences in the real world, and even in our internet use we devote less patience and focus to the information at hand.

After reading the article, "Is Google making us stupid?" I realized it was not just me that believes society is conforming to web-surfing androids. This past year, since receiving my own computer, I surf the web more than ever, Facebook like no tomorrow and always have access to anything at my fingertips. I am completely guilty of typing in mindless questions into the Google search bar and having the answer pop up in less than two seconds. Books these days seem to be overrated. Assignments and readings for class are simply put on Blackboard and papers turned in electronically. I miss my highlighter for books, and I miss my red editing pen more than ever. I think google is not making us dumber, just more ignorant. I personally know some people who have asked me how to spell things on a fifth grade reading level and rely on the internet for just about everything. I do believe this culture is straying away from text that you can hold into audio and visual on the computer. Its definitely a change, but change isn't always good.

Journal 10

After having researched and written about media, I agree that writing, power, and knowledge will and has changed with the increase in technology. Technology is now part of every aspect of our lives. Buisnessmen and women are forced to master technology if they have hopes of getting a job. I agree that technology has definitely made buisness, communication, and retrieving information easier and faster. However we no longer have to learn many things as a result of technology. We don’t have to memorize facts,we can simply type the question into google and get the answer in seconds. This concept also has to do with our ePortfolio assignment. Even to complete a portfolio I now have to know how to work technology. I also know that because everyone relies so heavily on technology I should add bits of technology, such as videos, or links to my portfolio to make it more appealing to an audience.

Journal 10

I agree with the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” I agree with it especially in the sense that changing technology is influencing the way humans think. The fact that technology has affected the human brain toas a point as impactful as how are brains function is an incredibly scary idea. It is scary because, as the article points out, new technology is decreasing the amount of direct experiences humans have. When I say direct experiences I am talking about face-to-face communication and actually applying knowledge to real-life situations. It seems that as humans change the way they think to become more efficient and quick, we are skimming over many important aspects of life and have started doing things halfway instead of whole-heartedly—this is because technology has taught us to think quickly and not deeply. I feel as if this goes along with the e-portfolio assignment since the assignment is completely online and therefore uses the technology that has made us skimmers rather than true readers.

Journal 10

After reading the article, "Is google making us stupid?" it had made me realize that the internet has been taking advantage by society. Instead of reading books, we tend to refer to the internet for the answers by simple typing into google our question and receiving the answer in a matter of second. Google makes it easy for us go to instead of finding the answer out the hard way. I think that because of Google our society is lacking some knowledge. If we continue to rely on the internet for answers, our society will slowly stop reading books, articles, and other sources that help us gain knowledge.

Journal 10

Respond to "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". After having researched and written about media, do you agree that the nature of writing, power, and knowledge is changing as technology is increasingly democratized? Does this inform your ePortfolio assignment?

Due: Thursday, April 21

I do agree with this article. I believe that more and more people find it hard to sit down and read a book rather than getting on the internet and just skimming looking for the answers. People now days do not go to the library and read books that give you the information, you skip right to the internet and find the answer in a matter of seconds. I believe that the internet is started to make people more anxious all the time and want to find the answer right away. I even found myself scroll down to see how much longer I had to go while I was reading the article because it seemed rather long to me and I was just seeing if I was close to being done. It's sad that it's starting to come down to that were everyone seems to be in such a hurry all the time and less about finding the correct information instead of the first information that you see on the internet which could more likely than not, be wrong. Reading this article makes me wonder what the world is really going to be like in 50 years, if books are even going to be around. The ePortfolio assignment is also on the internet so it makes me feel like were moving more into technology and away from pencil, paper and books.

Journal 10

After reading, "Is Google Making Us Stupid" I realized some of my own concerns about the technology increasing. Reading to me is an different thing that I do for school purposes only. However, I have noticed that throughout the years as the internet is becoming more popular that I cannot seem to read efficiently anymore with books or even online. It is hard for myself to get interested I feel as if I cannot focus on one particular reading at a time. This article just re-insured myself that Google could be making us "stupid". I believe the internet is decreasing our knowledge, power, and writing. It decreases our knowledge because we do not feel like we have to absorb anything because we have our answers online. The writing is probably decreased a little, but not as much as our writing. However, it dissolves our ability to write because the internet is making us less capable to read and without reading writing slowly diminishes. Power is decreased because power is the ability to read, write, and to obtain knowledge. This definitely puts a damper on our e portfolio project, however, I still think this is a good idea because we can see our mistakes, and writers memos all together which helps us become better writers.

Journal 10: The last one!

Respond to "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". After having researched and written about media, do you agree that the nature of writing, power, and knowledge is changing as technology is increasingly democratized? Does this inform your ePortfolio assignment?

Due: Thursday, April 21

What have you learned about your own style this semester? Do you agree with Vonnegut’s rules for style? What might you add, change, or remove?

I have learned a lot about my style this semester. Because these inquiries involve thinking about and incorporating different sources, this semester has taught me about my skills within organization, and how to fit everything that I want to get in into my essay. I also have learned my strengths and weaknesses within organization. I know that my strong points are within paragraph organization, but my weaknesses are within the transitions between paragraphs. I have learned that my papers move more fluently when I speak in the first person, so the papers this semester have been extremely helpful to my style of writing.

Journal 9

What have you learned about your own style this semester? Do you agree with Vonnegut’s rules for style? What might you add, change, or remove? Due: Thursday, April 14

I believe my writing style has progressively improved throughout this semester. I have learned how to express my ideas more easily, and make my papers more interesting. This semester has given me an opportunity to write about topics that I am interesting and reflect my personality through these. I certainly agree with Vonnegut's rules for style in that writing about something that interests you will make your writing stronger. I have realized that when I write about topics that I don't know much about and don't care to know more about, it is more of a struggle for me and my papers may come out somewhat unclear. Also, his rule about sounding like yourself is true as well. I have found that when I try to use vocabulary that I don't know how to incorporate into my essay properly it sounds awkward and it is best to just sound like yourself. Something I might add although it sort of goes along with find a subject you care about is make sure you understand what you write about. Don't pick something that you haven't researched or don't know much about. This will make your writing much stronger and interesting to your audience.

Journal 9

I think my biggest improvement to my writing was being able to stop and truly think about how I am going to make every idea and possible form of approach work in my head. In having to focus on one major theme yet, be able to choose any topic to cover, I learned to effectively shape my ideas to work with existing or opposing ideas. This year really got me thinking and shaped my writing in such a way as to help make my writing more precise and organized. When I write now, my writing come from deep within me. I think that now, even if I were assigned a topic and a specific argument to follow, I could do so due to the way this semester organized my thinking.

sexing up my writing

i think that the biggest change in my writing style is how i portray masculine and feminine traits. before this semester i never noticed how i described male or female in my writing now when i am writing if i want to make something some aggressive or strong i use a masculine trait to define it or if i want something to sound sweet or kind i use a feminine trait. i agree completely with vonnuget but i would add that if you can't write about a subject you like to try and relate the subject to something that interests you.