Nerf blaster post

This article definitely brought back some great memories of having Nerf wars with my neighbors. We would each have our own arsenal of Nerf blasters to use for our cause. We had a ton of fun pretending like we were agents in various armies across the world. With that being said, this wasn't necessarily my favorite article we've read. I didn't quite understand the point of the essay and I felt as if the author was giving me a boring lecture about the history of Nerf. I do agree with a lot of the points he made however. I agree that Hasbro building these Nerf guns is a tough engineering task. The engineers had to develop toy guns that had enough power to have fun with yet they had to be weak enough that they were safe to use for kids. I felt that the structure of this essay that the author used was very linear and boring. It seemed to me like he was just going through the history of Nerf like a lecture. While this may be a viable structure for a lot of essays, the topic of toy children’s guns as a huge business is something that I think can be made much more interesting than this author did.

Black Holes

This article was extremely interesting and remarkably easy to read for me. The author did a fantastic job of explaining black holes with a tough balance of hard facts about a topic I could never hope to fully comprehend with simple comparisons to daily life that helped me better understand the significance of black holes. The structure of this essay made me really feel like I was being taken on a journey by which I would have learned something in the end. The author started off with great comparisons of events similar to the creation of black holes to get the reader interested. He then continued these comparisons until finally getting to the black holes, in which the reader can understand just how truly unbelievable they are. The next section of the essay goes into giving the history of science of black holes. After the history section the author gets to the most important part of the essay; his attempt at explaining black holes in a simple way for the reader to hopefully understand. Again, I thought the author did a great job here in explaining black holes in a simple matter for us to understand while at the same time, not making us as readers feel like he is talking down to us as curious 4 year olds. The ending of the article was my favorite part. I loved how the author left us with an abstract, open-ended thought to really make us as the reader go crazy. The thought of us being in one of those black holes is just absurd to think… or is it? We can never really know the answer to that and the more we as readers think about it after reading the article, the more I appreciate the authors technique in writing this piece.

Peer Review Inquiry paper

Spencer- I thought that your paper has a really interesting and controversial topic and the paper itself has very voice. This is a topic that is always being debated and gets more and more controversial as the debate goes on. I thought all aspects of the paper were very well written. I do think that paper is missing research that will help your credibility and help the reader understand the question.

Marlon- This is a really interesting question to be asking. I really liked the introduction that you had. It caught my attention and got me very interested in the paper. I think the body of the paper itself could include a lot more analysis of these curse words like why is it that people use them and what they literally mean vs. what we use them as.

Sapna- I think you have a really interesting topic to discuss. The introduction does a very good job of clearly stating the question of the inquiry to the reader however, I think that it could be improved by adding some personal anecdotes or stories from other people about burritos to give a good hook to the reader. You seem to have done a lot of research into the history of burritos. This is good and it helps the reader get a good understanding of burritos. I do think that there may be a little bit too much of this however. Since the question of the paper is to find the perfect burrito, I think there needs to be more personal fieldwork (description of eating burritos). I noticed that in your conclusion, you didn’t clearly mention whether or not you found the answer to your question. Being an inquiry paper, I think your conclusion should include this. Overall this is a very good rough draft and there is a lot of good information to work with and mold. 

Inquiry prewriting

The question that I am aiming to answer for my inquiry essay is how and to what extent, if any at all, has modern technology made our lives easier. I chose this reason for several personal reasons of interest of mine. One of the major driving forces behind this inquiry question is that I have always been very influenced by and very interested in technology throughout my life. My dad works in sales for a large global networking company called CISCO Systems. Because of this, he has always been bringing in new technology from work to try out and use which has always sparked my interest. Another main reason for me choosing this topic is that I am a BIT or Business Information Technology major. In this major I am going to be dealing with a large amount of cohesion between the business world and the technology world. Essentially, I will be finding ways to create new technology and use that technology to allow businesses to run more efficiently and be more successful. I feel that I already know a great deal about the latest and greatest technology, however there is always more information that can be found by researching. I would also like to take a look at some of the first forms of our modern technology and see how quickly it has evolved in this digital age we are in. For my field research, I plan to come up with some experiments where I will cut out certain devices from my daily lives to truly see how much this technology has made my life easier or harder.

Ten people at my table

Ten people at my table:

-Young person like myself who grew up in this technology age

-Older person who grew up before modern technology

-Someone who works in the business world of this technology

-Psychologist to see how this technology is possibly affecting our thinking

-Physician to see the negative effects of this technology on our bodies (ex. Eyes, wrists, etc…)

-Sociologist to look at the effects of technology on our culture as a whole

-Engineers to see what is going through their heads while thinking of new technology

-People who have had their lives saved by new technologies in hospitals

-People in high ranking management positions at technology companies like IBM, Microsoft, and Apple

-Small business owners who use technology to grow their business

Student inquiry comparison post

For my two student inquiry’s, I read student 5 and student 6. Student 5’s inquiry was about the tedious task of being a college student and eating healthy. I thought this was an interesting and well written essay. I really enjoyed reading it because I am a college student and I am someone who definitely wants to stay as healthy as possible. I also thought that it offered some good tips and advice to eat healthier while still saving money. The second essay that I read was about the physical and mental limitations of pushing your body to its breaking point. Again this is another essay that I can relate to as I am a big athlete and someone who exercises very often. When looking at these inquiry papers back to back, there are a couple of techniques that the authors used that I will be aiming to emulate in my own paper. In both essays, the authors focused primarily on field research that they did to answer the question of their paper. By using this technique, the authors establish their strong credibility and connection with the reader. Another technique that was used in these essays was to cite quotes from experts in the field that the inquiry was about. For example, student 5 would use quotes from nutritionists while student 6 would use quotes from athletic trainers. Reading these essays has shown me some good tips and techniques that I can use myself in my inquiry paper.

Hot Air post

This article addresses an issue that I believe is going to become a much more serious problem in the coming years. The idea of climate change due to human actions is something that has been hugely debated and researched in the twenty first century. The primary issue addressed in this paper is that this, almost strictly scientific, topic has turned very into a left-wing vs. right-wing political debate. Right-wing republicans have the weathermen on their side while left-wing democrats have the environmental researchers on their side. The author of this article addresses the major problem of this debate is that the hard factual research done by scientists is being partially ignored because the weathermen who are in the public eye, do not believe the research of these scientists. This dilemma is drastically slowing the solution to the problem of climate change because the public only sees the views of weathermen who ignore the research done. As for the structure of the essay, it is very interesting to look at the underlying political debate going on here. The reader can clearly see that the author is on the left wing side of the argument. Although the author does seem to take a clear stance which can ruin his credibility, he does keep his credibility in my opinion by using a multitude of good factual evidence and statistics to back his controversial views.

Consider the Lobster post

I found this article very enjoyable to read because this is a question that I have found myself asking myself. Growing up in the New England area myself, I witnessed my fair share of Lobsters being boiled alive. I found myself thinking in the same way that DFW was. I wasn’t necessarily demonizing the chefs who were cooking said lobster because I myself enjoy eating them. I was however thinking about whether or not the feelings that the lobster could be feel in that scolding pot were comparable to something that a human could feel. When looking at the essay as a whole, I find it very interesting how DFW starts talking about the MLF and the inner workings of the event but then quickly and abruptly switches into a massive new argument. He talks about all of the different types of people at the festival and the effect that the festival can have on the economy of the New England area. He then smoothly transitions into talking about the main point of the essay which is how the lobsters themselves might feel about being boiled alive and devoured. Something very interesting to look at in this essay is the opinions and views of DFW at the start of the essay and the end. I do believe that his views changed slightly throughout the essay. My assumption is that DFW came into the essay not so much hating the idea of boiling lobsters alive however, after all of the research he done, he was appalled at the idea of it. Being a fantastic writer however, DFW never clearly states that in the essay as to keep his credibility and transparency. 

Is Google making us stupid post

This essay was very interesting to read for me because it is very relatable to my own personal inquiry question. Carr does a wonderful job in the structure of this essay by introducing the question with a grasping scene from a well-known movie then transitioning into the meat of the question while still touching back on that original scene. By alluding to the scene, he gets the audience’s mind moving in the direction of the question. This is key to writing a strong inquiry essay because as an author, you could never know what is on the reader’s mind before delving into your essay. By starting with an interesting anecdote, you as the author accomplishes the task of gaining the reader’s attention in the direction of the question you’re trying to answer. I was slightly disappointed in the title of the essay however. I feel that by asking such a specific question, you really need to primarily address that main question with some other anecdotes thrown in. I do understand why the title is what it is however I would’ve liked to have seen some more discussion about google itself rather than the history of how people used to read literature. Another way that I think would have made this title more meaningful would be to start off the essay with an interesting hook that talks of about google.