Synthesis Paper & Lessons Learned.

A synthesis paper differs from a rhetorical analysis and objective summary in many ways. The first way it is different is in the way that personal opinion needs to be incorporated into a synthesis paper because a huge part of a synthesis paper is to take a position on a subject matter. Then, we have to show how different articles or essays agree/disagree with our opinion and how they “interact” with one another. Basically, the purpose of a synthesis paper is to distinguish ideas between articles/essays by comparing and contrasting their views on the subject matter in order to persuade the audience of something. Something that was hard about this essay was gathering information and choosing which articles to interact with one another. In everyday life, examples of synthesis are hard to miss. From the top of my head, even when you’re just talking with your friends you can get into arguments/discussions about some silly or serious matter and that’s when you may see synthesis.

Some Research Topic Info.

After reading a wikipedia article on the effects of coffee on the body and health I found that there are  a lot of diseases and bodily complications associated with caffeine. Not all of the things that were listed in this wikipedia article though have been proven to actually be caused by coffee. True, there is association but that does not mean that it entails causation. In this same article, there were also some health benefits associated with coffee and caffeine. Again, many of the benefits are just associated with caffeine.

As I was looking for blogs that cover my research topic, I found many blogs that touched on some kind of coffee drink of caffeinated beverage but they were not really all that relevant for my research. Many bloggers blog about the new pumpkin spicy coffee/latte drink thing at starbucks, that apparently is only available during winter, and how much they love it. Another blogger was talking about an iced Vietnamese coffee they recently tasted and how delicious it turned out to be, etc.

After doing this research, I realized I had a ton of more research ahead of me….

Hm.. so what do others blog about?

The first blog I found that grabbed my attention was one written by The Beautiful Life. It grabbed my attention because, being a dog owner myself, naturally, I have come to love dogs and the post was about none other than a cute puppy. The story behind the post is a sad one though, I was sorry to read. However, it is sad and inspirational at the same time. The author took in a puppy that was supposed to be killed. I think that this is one of the nicest acts of kindness that anybody can do because animals are such innocent creatures, they don’t deserve to be treated bad in any way. But this pup seemed to have been treated bad. Here is the link: 🙂

The second blog I found is by TheCathodeRayChoob about a review of a song and music video made by one of my favorite bands, Muse. The review is about their song Knights of Cydonia and the author is arguing that it may be one of the best videos ever made. I agree that it is a pretty entertaining video (and an awesome song, for that matter) but I am not sure that I would classify as the single best video, though it is pretty high up there. The blogger also added a link to the video in the post. Judge for yourself!

Something that both of these bloggers did well is that they chose interesting topics to write about and their posts were interesting to read. As for improving, I only have one criticism for The Beautiful Life– to update us with another post about the status of the puppy!

Rhetorical Analysis: Lessons Learned.

A rhetorical analysis differs from an objective summary in the way that it is an analysis in which we pick apart the strategies that the author used to make his/her point in their writing. Once we do that, we decide if the author was successful in proving his/her point. Whereas in an objective analysis, the point is to basically summarize the work of writing in an unbiased voice.

Something that was difficult about the rhetorical analysis for me was deciding the type of strategies that the author incorporated in his/her work, sometimes I would get examples of logos, ethos and pathos mixed up– I always confuse them all for some reason. Other than that, the analysis was decently fair to write. We might use rhetorical analysis when reading any other works in which someone is trying to persuade us of something.

Objective Summaries: lessons learned

The biggest lesson I learned from writing objective summaries is remembering to maintain an objective stance. I had to keep reminding myself that I had to write in an objective voice. After that, it wasn’t really all that difficult, it was just stating what the articles were about. In everyday life, it is always important to keep an objective view about something you don’t know until you actually know facts about the subject matter. Since we’re always learning new things, objectivity is definitely something that we utilize on a regular basis.

Something Interesting.

This is Josh Ripley. Who is he, you ask? Well, read on...

http://rivals.yahoo.com/highschool/blog/prep_rally/post/Runner-carries-injured-foe-half-mile-to-help-in-?urn=highschool-wp6171

This is an article about a boy, Josh Ripley, who was competing at a cross-country meet who stopped and helped another competitor even though he didn’t have to. He said that if he had been the other guy’s position, he would have wanted to have done the same for him. Ripley actually carried the other guy to where the coaches were when no one else even bothered to stop.

I think this is a very interesting article because it shows a great act of kindness from one individual to another one. Ripley didn’t have to stop, he was competing and he could have been selfish and continued running like everyone else did, but he didn’t. Instead he decided to sacrifice his place to help someone out. I think that we can all learn from this and just always be willing to give a helping hand to others.

This week’s comments

So, this past week we did peer review. Overall, this didn’t really help me. The one comment that one person made on my analysis was too vague. The other comments were just pointing out stuff (like the instructions that were given to us said to do). And they were pointing out stuff that I obviously knew since I am the one that wrote it and I know that I was giving examples of things like logos, pathos and ethos. Anyway, hopefully the teachers’ review will be much more helpful.

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