The issue of 9/11 attack and the Iraq war are both very big issues within the United States. So big, that someone by the name of Michael Moore made a movie/documentary about it. This movie is about how President Bush had ties with the 9/11 terrorists before their attack. Also, how after the 9/11 attack, President Bush failed to do anything for his country, rather using the 9/11 event to declare war on Iraq. Moore also implies that President Bush did this because of his other wealthy connections influencing him to do so, and how President Bush helped Bin Laden’s family to leave the states right after 9/11. A big part of the movie shows American soldiers having second thoughts about the Iraq war and the negative opinions of families with children in the army. A very strong part of the movie comes from the people Moore interviews. An example could be of a woman who he interviewed while her son was still in the war. She was a very patriotic mother and proud of her son serving their country. Afterwards Moore interviews her again after her son died, to find her very angry and upset. She reads the last letters her son sent to her and even travels over to the White House the curse the President.

The impact this movie caused seems to come from the fact that it is in a documentary format. Although not totally true, most people tend to think that a documentary is non-biased and only based on facts. A documentary is based more on facts than a normal movie, but that doesn’t mean it is like the news. In this case, Moore has made a documentary about a highly controversial issue, which can only lead to highly biased opinions. It is plainly shown that Moore wanted to make this into a Documentary because by using visuals, research, and interviews his point he is trying to prove seems more credible to the people. It is without a doubt that this documentary is more on the biased side. Moore shows quite bluntly President Bush’s incompetence before and after the 9/11 war which caused so many people to suffer. He portrays President as an ignorant killer with a corrupt administration.

As with all documentaries or movies, not all people agree with the overall theme or message being sent out. Because the movie seems so radical on its views a lot of people say that it is not skilled nor credible enough for any actions to be taken based on it. Also the man, who made the document, Michael Moore, is also a very controversial figure. Some people say he is a genius while others say he is a fraud. Some people find it hard to believe anything in the document because they think it may be fake material.

In my opinion, it’s very controversial. Movie is more like documentary, so may be boring to people not interested on the topic. Seems to be accusing President Bush as a very incompetent president that didn’t do anything right about the 9/11 issue. Of course anything regarding politics is controversial and biased, but it is weird to see something like that so openly expressed in a movie.

The first thing I learned from this reading was that writing styles have genres. Until reading this article, I thought "genre" was a word used exclusivly for movie types. I am glad I got that misconception cleared up. I also learned that a composition may not be classified under only one genre. This is extremely good to know since in many of my papers, the feeling behind it sometimes changes throught the writing. The "Genre Notes on the Academic Essay" also looks very helpful. It's nice that they organized into a neat list that a student could just run down and check off while writing their paper. As for the sencond part of the reading, it was nice to get a little refresher on Ethos, Logos, and Pathos, since they are a very important part of writing. The description of the writing process was pretty clear to me before the reading, but it was still helpful to be reminded. I did get a better understanding of the difference between revising and editing are though. I also really like how the reading encouraged you to have a creative and playful attitude during the inventing stage. I totally agree with this comment. When I sit down and try to make my first go at a paper perfect, I usually don't get very far and get very frusterated.

In my life, this was actually the first article I have read on paragraphs. I have known what a paragraph is since first grade. I actually remember one specific first grade lecture (as in a five minute talk) about paragraphs. The teacher told us a paragraph had to be five sentences long. At that time in my life, that seemed like writing a book. However, still to this day, I always make sure my paragraphs are five sentences long. Besides the length, I had no idea there were so many aspects of paragraphs you need to keep in mind when writing one. Some of these aspects are obvious to me, such as staying on topic throughout the paragraph and using transition words. However (speaking of transition words), I did learn a couple new things from this reading. For example, I did not know that the connection between sentences within a paragraph was known as coherence. I also did not know what parallel stuctures in writing were before this read. I actually used parallel stucture in my identiy paper, and I did not even know there was a name for it. As I was using it, I was actually unsure if it was appropriate to write in that manner. I am glad to know it is perfectly fine. I really like the feel of parrallel structures, so I am sure I will be using many more in the future.

I've searched the internet before, for both school and pleasure, but my main method of search was google. This reading described many more kinds of searches than I was used to. I seem to remember once learning about wildcard searches, but it was a long time ago. Other than that, this reading really just seemed to be telling you how search engines found things based on what you gave them in order for you to better navigate through these sites to the content you desire.

This reading was definitely helpful for my research process. I do most of these things already when I search for information, but finding encylclopedias was one thing I hadn't thought of. Looking to the end of sources to find their bibliographies if existant is another helpful method.

This reading will be helpful when doing such things as proof reading someone's paper. We all read things every day, and maybe sometimes we might be thinking about what we're reading, but rarely are we thinking about how we are reading it, or what the focus of our reading is.

This reading on genres will certainly be helpful the for future papers I write to keep my writing consistant with the type of writen material I will be trying to create. Like most material in this class, the benfit is not in the dificulty of the theory, but in the consious awareness that is created by pointing out the subtleties of these simple concepts.

This reading described and defined paragraphs, which we use all the time. It's really a simple concept but it was helped me think more about what I really wanted to acomplish with my paragraphs and be more conscious that I don't put too many ideas or thought into one paragraph. I know that I sometimes do that when I get on a roll.

I had a good high schoool teacher, so I knew something about thesis statements before reading this. I found it interesting how the reading described the thesis as having a shaping influence on everything else. In a way the thesis is a very well focused and summarized form of your topic, so when you are searching for a topic, you are finding your thesis and shaping your paper.

Does anyone know how many papers we should have on the CD? I don't want to miss any!