24. Killing Me Microsoftly

A freewilling address, full of digressions and personal chemistry, to change hearts and minds most effectively, verses Microsoft's PowerPoint. Which seems to be more persuasive and effective? Surprisingly, people choose to look at PowerPoint presentations. What Keller is most worried about is:  "[Microsoft's] attempts to make PowerPoint easier to use, they have all these templates. They totally limit your ability to express yourself. Everybody's using the same color palette. It's one more way to choke the life out of creativity." PowerPoint is getting in our way of expressing our creativity and intelligence. It sets limits and boundaries when people share information or convey messages; it condenses and abbreviates the information. "What sort of world is reflected in PowerPoint? A world stripped down to briefly summarized essences, a world snipped clean of the annoying underbrush of ambiguity and complication. "

What's most impressive about Keller's article is that she referred to many other people such as professors from UCLA, Northwestern University, MIT, and all these amazing universities to get a real scoop of their opinion on PowerPoint. These credible resources boosts up the quality of her article, totally backing up her argument. Although not all of the quotes that she mentions is on her side of the argument, they still provide good reaons, justifying thoroughly for each side. Especially because PowerPoints are used mostly among teachers conveying information to students in lectures, she was smart to interview all these college professors. However if she also interviewed business people or those that are related in marketing that also involves a lot of trade of information through PPt, it could've broadended the reader's perspective of not just judging PPT based on educational uses. Overall I think Keller did a well job to persuade her readers-I really like the mockery tone that she used to criticize Microsoft. It brings interest in to the article as well as persuasion. 

22. On Self-Respect

Didion aspect of how people with and without self-respect act are explained many different times in this article. He first starts out by explaining his own situation that he had when he was rejected to Phi Beta Kappa. Although he somewhat expected it but never thought that he'd actually be rejected to it, he had lost self-respect for himself as well as that innocence he had since a child. He'd been growing up with the innocent belief of children such as if you try hard, things can always work out for you, which is not true in the real world and this brought him down. As he gives his own example of not having self-respect, he moves back and forth to give various explanations of when a person does with and without self-respect. "Self-respect is ... a certain discipline, the sense that one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts". 

Because not that many of us hear lectures on self-respect, I think Dordion was very passionate about thoroughly explaining what self-respect is and what is when not haveing self-respect. He gave so many definitions and exaples to make the readers understand as he relied on his own experience and the characters of The Great Gatsby. By the end of the article I felt and learned so much about the importance of self-respect. Dordian used long, lengthy sentences, listing all the facts and providing reasons to prove his aspect of self-respect. I think this article is very successful because the author did a very well done job of conveying his main point of the message to the readers, and made sure not to just explain one side of self-respect but both, securing the definition that he gives of self-respect. 

21. How Not to Argue like an Idiot

Nmcdonald's expressed his dissatisfactory view on how Christians try to defend their philosophy. He seems that most of their "logic" isn't credible, due to how they get their words around resulting in having logical fallacies. He claimes that being logical is good, but sometimes they just aren't authoritative. Nmcdonald warns people not to fall prey in to Christianic sermons by listing out all these logical fallacies that he has heard in the past year of how Christians have used their words to persuade people. He lists Ad Hominem, Straw Man, False Analogy, and etc. Then he briefly explains the term, and talks about how he has heard these rhetorical devices being used in real life by Christians.

I think I've heard "Begging the Question" many, many times in my life, but mostly before highschool or when talking with friends. In class we don't try to just assume our premises; we try to exaplain our stance and back it up with evidence. Though when we talk with friends about celebrities, music, books, we make comments without much explanation following the comment because between friends we all expect each other to understand it. For example, if someone hates Justin Bieber, (which I heard more than 10 times this year already) all they'd say is "Oh my gosh I hate him. He's gay!" However not many have gave sufficient evidence or support to prove his gayness.

23. Are the Homeless Crazy?

Despite the factual information of mass losses of houses and jobs in the 1960~70's, people doubt the majority of the homeless people to be former patients of some mental hostpitals that were deinstitutionalized as well in the 1970s. It is clear that although some of the patients might have had no place to go after the deinstitutionalization of mental hospitals, many were put in to boarding houses or given low-income housing, therefore there is a less chance that the majority of the homeless were due to deinstitutionalization. The reason why the mentally disabled people were accused of being the reason for having homelesses seems to be because of their powerless stance in the society and how people normally look down on them. Evidence proves that reasons for poverty is primarily due to economical reasons than clinical. The reason why the press demands so much attention for this mental illness issue is because, "mental ilness places the destitute outside the sphere of ordinary life. It personalizes an anguish that is public in its genesis; it individualizes a misery that is both general in cause and geeral in application".

The author of thsi article, Jonathan Kozol, seemed like he had a lot of dissatisfaction of how the mental illnesses were viewed. He first starts out his article by covering the basic background information of how people are seeing the homeless today; that most of them emerged from deinstitutionalized mental hospitls. However, in his following paragraph, he directly counter aruges this stance by firmly stating that "the primary reason is economic rather than clinial". Through his providence of data, numbers, credible sources and even prorviding the approximate time era of when these surverys were taken, his claims are supported thoroughly and enough to be able to persude his readers. Overall I think Kozol did well in persuading his readers with credible evidence and enough explanation to support his arguemnts. His aritcle was not hard to follow at all, and I really liked how his title got my attention.  "Are the Homeless Crazy?" sounds very absurd, as if he was trying to mock those whoever called the homeless crazy.

26. Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp

Joy Williams in her article "Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp" she brings up a very discussed topic in the modern days: taking care of the environment. The article begins with a strong criticism on human beings, pointing out the selfishness and ignorance regarding saving the planet. Another topic that she approaches is the environmentalists, and their fame and recognition. Than she mentions the view and intentions of the human mind, how we look for places to construct and not to preserve. Williams compares how rain used to be enjoyed, children would play in the rain and now it is not even possible due to the acid rain. Florida is also criticized because it was built on top of a massive swamp. The article is concluded with the statement that the world had humanist tendencies in the last years, which means that it bends toward the comfort and will of humans, which are ignorant towards any care to  the environment.
Williams starts off attacking the audience, it gathers the reader attention but at the same time offends the reader. Straight off she criticizes the human selfish tendencies and states her point: The nature should be preserved. She goes on and lists, several good examples of how, us humans, are selfish and ignore the environment. The examples are true, and appropriate to the article but they are listed together. In a casual tone, using personal pronouns Williams engages the reader to her interesting topic, but fails to convince the reader. It seems that show is trying to force the reader to convince, if she had done cause-effect-cause-effect-solution than it might have worked better to achieve its purpose, that is, convince the reader to take steps to help the environment.

http://disassemblingwalle.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/savethewhales1.pdf

26. Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp

In her essay "Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp," Joy Williams addresses a very serious issue. She writes about the decreasing nature. The people are losing their respect and love for Nature, replacing it with self-interest. People will only do something about nature if it is convenient for them, which is most often not the case. They will ignore machinery and technology that could save wildlife for more money. Shrimpers could save many turtles and marine mammals by using technology that could help avoid them but they choose not to. They would rather have a larger haul of shrimp than save the lives of other living beings. People will look at marshlands and swamps as their personal filters for the chemicals they dump onto their lawns. When they see an untouched piece of land, instead of admiring its beauty people will admire its potential to build more buildings. Nature has become a source of materials, not something to be admired and preserved. She finishes her essay by saying that this issue can not be solved through politics but by changing the culture and character of society today.
Williams writes about a very interesting topic but it would have been more effective if she had written it differently. The issues she writes about do not seem as bad as they are because of the way she writes. She writes with a detached tone with a cynical undertone. If she had emphasized her dislike for this issue, it would have made it more striking. It was good to include the many different examples that she did to show the various areas humans are destroying nature for personal gain. She could have, however written the examples in a different manner instead of just stating them one after the other. However, her examples are very good in the actual example itself and what it was about. The examples are common everyday things that help the audience relate to what she is writing and realize the damage their behavior is causing. However, she basically writes only examples throughout her whole essay and condenses the main ideas into the last two paragraphs. She writes how it can be solved but the change is very abrupt. It would have been better if she had developed the last paragraphs more and had incorporated them into her writing. Instead of just stating her examples, she should have organized her essay in a more coherent and structured form. Overall, she had good points but was not able to bring them together into a very effective essay. 

26. Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp

      This article by Joy Williams discusses one of the most debatable environmental issues in our world today: saving the nature. Williams discusses that the environmentalists, that are the main people trying to fight for our planet, are also consumers, that without noticing are consuming products that are extremely bad for our environment and that go against their own views. Joy William goes on by expressing how these environmentalist aren't praised at all, since what they have been causing is economic problems, mainly in the food industry. The people who sell shrimp are hated for selling one of the most demanded products in the food industry. Overall, this article show the problem of the concept of saving the world we live in because instead of working for a better world to live in, people just want to live their own selfish life, and stay in their comfort zone. Williams however also warns the reader that for this problem to be solved, we, as a society, must treat the world and each other with love and respect.

      This article is some what a critic to these environmentalist that are obsessed with their own idea of "saving Earth." At the same time, Williams has a way of showing how these environmentalist actually really do want the good of the world. She shows both sides of the argument, and gives credit to both opinions. She makes this article very personal, using pronouns such as "you." Her language is clear and intriguing. She makes the reader actually want to continue reading, even though her topic may not be the most interesting one to the reader. Williams engages her readers with her personal language and rich vocabulary. Overall the article was extremely well written and well developed.