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.

This reading was extremely short, but I suprisingly learned a couple of new definitions and ideas. Firstly, until reading this article, I had never heard of a "annotated bibliography". The Thomson Handbook did a very good job of breifly explaining the process of writing one. I can definitely see how writing a brief annotated bibliography can be helpful. With the dozons of sources you look at when writing a research paper, it probably makes it easier to organize all these resources into one summerizing list. However, I think the example the book showed was a bit much. I feel that writing a super detailed annotated bibliography whould be a waste of time for me. If I were to write any annotated bibliographies, they would probably be short and percise, with a list of key topics.

I thought this reading was informative and organized well. I liked how the main rules to writing a thesis statement were layed out in bullet points. It will be good to go back to when finalizing my paper. However, for the most part, what the article said, I already knew. It wasn't an especially suprising reading. After years and years of messing up or forgeting thesis statements, I have finally gotten the hang of writing them. They tend to be a little difficult to write, but I definetly understand what need to be included and not included in one now. I will still be sure to go back to the reading and double check myself though. I should never be too overconfident. In addition, I really appreciated the comment in the reading that said that if your paper is not going in the direction it is suppose to, "don't hesitate to revise your thesis". I tend to do this a lot. It was reassuring to read that it is perfectly okay to do just that.

Movie Review of Ashtanga, NY: A Yoga Documentary

For my research paper topic, I choose to explore the practice of meditation. Meditation is a discipline that focuses the mind on awareness or a certain thought. When one thinks of meditation, the first image that often comes to mind is of a figure sitting on the floor in a quiet and tranquil area, with eyes close and feet crossed. The described meditating procedure is a common way meditation is practiced, but not the only way. Yoga is form of meditation that involves a series of postures and stretches that are made in sync with the breath. Yoga is thought to bring a variety of benefits to the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of one’s life.

For this reason, I choose to use a film called Ashtanga, NY: A Yoga Documentary to aid me in my research paper. I would agree with the title in consider this film to be a documentary because only real life footage was used to make it. This film was initially created to document a month long yoga workshop that was taking place in New York. However, during this workshop, the tragic event of 9/11 occurred. The documentary then takes an unexpected twist to show the affect yoga had on these traumatized New York citizens. The documentary interviewed a variety of participants, as well as the teachers of the workshop, to get an understanding of what their impression of yoga was. In addition, there was a vast amount of footage showing movements and postures that are involve in yoga. With the exception of a few aspects, I believe Astanga, NY proved to be a well produced and informative documentary.

Midway through my first viewing Astanga, NY, I realized how well made this documentary was. It gave off a very soothing and calming vibe throughout the film. This may have been due to the appropriate music that was played during the documentary, as well as the lighting it was shot in. Most of the scenes were shot in rooms that were eliminated by bright sunlight. In addition, the documentary captured the participants of the workshop in their most natural state. You could see and almost feel the concentration and focus these people had while doing their practices. This documentary did an excellent job of using a style of filming and producing that was befitting to the topic of interest.

For the most part, I thought that Ashtanga, NY was an interesting documentary to watch. I really enjoyed seeing the different yoga positions being practiced. Some of them looked extremely difficult to do, and it was impressive to see the workshop participants maneuvering their bodies in ways that I would never have imagined. I was also very intrigued by what the interviewed participants said about their experience with yoga. I plan to use their insights on yoga to strengthen my research for my paper. On the other hand, this documentary was not as inspiring as I would have hoped for it to be. When I found out that this documentary was made in the midst of 9/11, I was eager to see how yoga meditation was used in such a tragic event. The film did show a chanting practice that took place in reverence to those who were hurt and killed by the plane crashes, but to my surprise, only a small portion of the documentary was attributed to affect yoga had on these dismayed citizens. Overall, I am glad I viewed this documentary. It may not be my most valuable source for my paper, but it did give me a better understanding of yoga meditation as a whole.

I thought this reading was helpful, but was also a bit confusing. The first part that instructed us to what to look for and use when writing a rhetorical paper was usful. It introduced me to the idea that a paper can be persuasive without it being obvious about it. I found this to be a especially good thing to know. This will hopefully make be a more critical reader in the future. However, I found the paper we were suppose to read and analyze very confusing. Firstly, the whole paper seemed to be a bit disorganized to me. The author of the paper spent 7 pages telling us about his story, and only wrote one page to explain his title. After discussing his paper in class, I got a better understanding of what the author was trying to get across, however, I still think he could have explained his purpose better. I am sure that the book was trying to give an example of how to write a rhetoric analysis in a sneaky, unclear way, but I personally thought that the authors way of writing was not very good. It was super vauge in the important parts, and I felt like I did not understand the purpose of the paper after reading it.

I thought that this reading provided me with a good guide to how I should confront my paper. Many of the things discussed were obvious steps to writing a paper, but I really liked how the reading discussed why these steps need to be taken and the proper way to do it. This reading did introduce me to a few new ideas that I think would be useful to my research paper writing. For instance, I think listing key terms that I see come up in articles is a very good idea. Having those terms in front of me will probably help me to organize my thoughts and the topics I want to discuss. I also really liked the idea of recording my progress on my research paper in a journal. I really like the idea of having all my information in one, solid, orgainzed notebook. With a journal, I will be able to cite my sources easily, and will be able to remember spirts of inspiration I may come across. In addition, I think a journal would also organize my thoughts and will help keep me on the right track. I have a bad habit of diverting the topic when writing papers, and I think journal keeping will help eliminate that.

Though the article was a bit long, I really enjoyed reading it. I have a small obsession with analyzing my identity and others identity. This article was right up my alley of interest. I thought the first part looked at identity in a very interesting way. I really got a lot out of the "If People are Words, Why Don't They Live in Dictionaries?" section. I was impressed with their explination that indentity is definetly more than language, however "whatever we may be beyond language is largely inaccessible, even to ourselves." A light bulb clicked on when I read that, because that is exactly right! There are so many aspects to your identity, many of which are emotions, thoughts, feeling, and unexplainable occurances. However, the furthest we can get to explaining these phonemenoms is through language. The Three Dimension of Identity they listed were also new to me. I liked how they looked at identity as heredity, society, and self. It was a good way to orgainzed the infulences of identity. Then the incorpuration of Consumer Readymades, and other advertisement schemes were really interesting. At one point, I had forgotten we were even talking about rhetorics, so it was a nice little suprise to see that angle of the discussion on identity. Overall, I think this article gave me a much better idea of the connection between identity and rhetoric.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

I personally found this article extremely informative. I took COM 114 last year, however we never went over these terms in class. Now that I know what all three mean, I feel as though they are very important aspects of speaking. I think it would be very helpful integrate any of these patterns into a speech. I found it especially interesting because it breaks down the audience’s position while you are speaking to them. Often, when I write a speech, the audience is the last thing on my mind. I concentrate way more on the content and the visuals that are in my speech. This may be because I have never had to give a speech that wasn't for a grade, but I am sure the day will come when I am going to have to present something to a group of people. When this day comes, I will most certainly have to bust out my "Speaking Ethos, Logos, and Pathos" article and determine what the most effective way of presenting my material will be. Actually, I will hopefully be able to integrate the material I learned from this article into my future classes. I am sure that having an attentive audience while presenting a PowerPoint will definitely make speaking in front of a class a lot easier for me. Plus, I need to be aware of the Golden Rule: Do to one what you would like to have done to you. I personally would much rather sit in class and listen to a well presented, exciting speech, rather than a lame and boring one.