My Thoughts on Comments

Credible comments

Screenshot taken from abcnews. 8/29/15

1. This commenter doesn't express fear, anxiety, or wishful thinking. They come off as a realist in this debate and take things exactly as they are, not blowing it out of proportion or try to make it into another debate between our political parties.
2. Tobias seems to hold basic human beliefs that war is bad. I don't know anyone who likes war. Democrats think Republicans like war but that's not true in my experience. Basic human beliefs are that war is bad but some aren't willing to let others step on their toes and get away with it.
3. This commenter seems reasonable to me because they are so moderate. I think they can speak to both sides of the political spectrum. They try to turn the attention toward the bigger picture, war, and get some cooperation out of people instead of pointing fingers at the other side of the argument.

Screenshot taken from abcnews. 8/29/15

1. This commenter does not express fear, anxiety, or wishful thinking. They do not think Chris Kyle was a perfect human being and they do not pretend that he is.
2. keeyoni may believe that the war in Iraq is "complete bull" but that is not certain. They  likely think that Chris Kyle is heroic, but this is not directly stated. They do believe that Kyle did what he believed in at his own expense, which would be a very difficult point to argue.
3. This commenter seems reasonable to me because they address the core of what makes Chris Kyle heroic. It's not because he killed 160+ people, but rather his personal sacrifice for what he believed in.

Comments that Lack Credibility

Screenshot taken from abcnews. 8/29/15



1. RealAmerican expresses a dislike for fat slobs and child molesters, which could possibly be considered some form of anxiety.
2. This commenter's beliefs are clearly stated in their comment: Seth Rogen reminds him/her of a fat slob and Mike Moore looks like a child molester.
3. RealAmerican lacks credibility for what I think are pretty obvious reasons. He/she attacks the people instead of the issue they are presenting. This is a logical fallacy known as ad-hominem. The opinions may have some credibility but the commenter does nothing to support their opinion.

Screenshot taken from abcnews. 8/29/15

1. Denize Murray expresses a dislike for hypocrites, I think. Her comment was not proof-read so it doesn't make total sense. But I think we can decode what she's trying to say.
2. She believes that Chris Kyle was a glorified killer and he was a hypocrite to fight other killers.
3. Denize lacks credibility because her argument is not structured or grammared very good. Maybe she has a point but it's almost totally lost by the lack of readability. She also does not give proper support to her point.
   
   
   
   
   Reflection: I read Trey and Mehruba's blogs. I forgot to write the reflection until today, 9/9, but I did write my comments before the due date. I could relate to parts of their blog posts like the scarcity of any sort of credible comments. I found that I can view both sides of an argument. Both sides have credibility but as with everything, it's up to the reader what they think is more credible than other things. 



My Controversy

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/american-sniper-generates-off-screen-controversy/story?id=28342832

I selected the American Sniper story as my controversy. Although Chris Kyle is dead, the movie about him, American Sniper, brought up controversy over his actions. Comedian Seth Rogen compared the movie to Nazi propaganda and filmmaker Michael Moore called snipers "cowards". They received backlash from many, including Sarah Palin who thanked director Clint Eastwood and actor Bradley Cooper for respecting the United States Military.

I chose this subject because I am opposed to and offended by the comments made by Rogen and Moore. Chris Kyle did what he deemed necessary to save American lives. And he did save American lives. Last I checked, that makes him an American hero. A hero doesn't deserve hate from anyone of the country they would lay down their life for.

Article from abcnews.

Calendar Reflection

I guess free time in college is supposed to be a lot harder to find than I make it look. I keep a really tight course schedule, allowing me to have a surplus of time most afternoons. Some defining positives of my weekly schedule include:

• free time all Saturday and Sunday
• soccer for 6 hours on weekdays
• sleep from 10 to 7, and
• maintain a total of 30 hours for studying on weekdays 

In the unlikely event that 30 hours dedicated to homework and studying isn't enough during the week, I can always use some free time to get that done. I also have the option to switch around study and free time so I don't have to do schoolwork day in and day out 5 days a week.

Peron, Ludovic. "Suisse vs Argentine - Granit Xhaka & Lionel Messi" 3/29/12 via Wikipedia. Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

Reflection:

After reading about Morgan and Kelly's weekly calendars, I realized that I my schedule looks very different from others. Since I do not live on campus, I planned my schedule to be way tighter than others. The longest gap between classes I have is an hour and a half, which is more than I wanted. I didn't really consider doing schoolwork in my hour long breaks but after reading these blogs, an hour seems like valuable time to get work done.

My Writing Process

Many people consider writing a process. There are even different "archetypes" for people of different writing processes. This would make sense if one identifies themselves as any of the first three described: a "heavy planner", "heavy reviser", or a "sequential composer". However, if one is in the final category, like myself, he/she understands that writing is not a process and gets a bit of a laugh at the thought of planning out written work.

I am the procrastinator-type writer but I don't think that gives me enough credit. I don't know about other procrastinators, but for me, good ideas and planning come the day before an assignment is due. I put in just as much planning as sequential writers with the quality of a heavy planner in a fraction of the time. So really, I am the superior mix of procrastinator, sequential, and heavy-planning writers. Sorry heavy revisers, but you're not needed for the most efficient form of the writing process.

birgerking. "Procrastination Flowchart" 7/31/11 via flickr. Attribution 2.0 Generic

My way of the writing process has worked out really well for me. As stated before, I save time at zero expense to quality. There's a peace to knowing I will do an assignment the day before it's due. It is expected that that adds stress to the procrastinator's life, but I've found quite the contrary. Real procrastinators resonate with this fact: if I'm not going to do it, then I'm not going to worry about it.

Unfortunately, procrastination does have a weakness. If one isn't born with the ability to function at 110% under the pressure of weeks and weeks piled on to a few hours, then procrastination will make the essay not a piece of trash, but rather an entire landfill of garbage.

There's rumor that procrastination undeniably results in bad work, but that's not true. it is just a trend and should be treated as such; it's just a coincidence.

Teachers always disrespect the power of procrastination. They always say that I should try a new way of doing the writing process. I have tried all of them but my grades are always the same. The writing is considerably longer, but if the grade doesn't improve, then it's not worth the time and effort.


Reflection:

I read Brandon and Dylan's blogs, both have writing processes that I can relate to. From Brandon's blog, I learned that I undervalue the revision stage of the writing process. As he stated, "ego has no place in writing" and I need to look at my paper several times over and critically evaluate it to try to improve it. I learned that I need to relax and not overthink the writing process from Dylan's blog. Not procrastinating would really help that aspect and I will try not to do so in the future.