Just Hang In There Justin Rhoades

Justin Rhoades
Tess Evans
English 103
3 December 2009
Just Hang In There
2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is movie based on space and mankind’s advancement through evolution with the tool. However, this is not very evident through out the movie. Kubrick does a good job also, with the use of engineers, to make an attempt to envision what technology mankind could possess in 2001. One can get very bored with the movie because of the plot and lack of dialogue. I personal was bored watching the movie. However, now that I did some research, I understand and appreciate the movie more. . Overall this movie is not your average movie, it makes the viewer think.
When watching this movie for the first time, one gets very bored. I personally was very bored watching it the first time, due to the lack of knowledge. The plot is very hard to flow and viewers lose attention in the movie. Another thing is the lack of dialogue. There is hardly any dialogue in the very beginning and the very end. What dialogue there is, is very short and not entertaining. If you stick to watching the movie you can figure out what Kubrick is trying to say and present to the audience.
Also, as viewer you have to look at this movie as an artistic movie instead of entertainment. If your looking for car chases, fighting, and explosions your looking in the wrong place. Sometimes through the movie you have about five minutes of straight colorful lights. The plot is very in depth, also. You may or may not get the plot the first time you see it. I personally did not get the movie at all the first time I watched it. I recommend researching it to understand the artistic value of the movie.
The plot is based on the evolution of man with the use of tools. In the beginning the apes discover the use of tools. With learning how to use tools comes advantages and responsibilities. The apes can get food relevantly easy but learn the power to kill with that advantage. Through out the movie man becomes more and more dependant on technology as they evolve. Virtually everything they do is with the use of machines. When they breathe and live in space the astronauts are dependant on machines. Near the end of the movie technology almost destroy man. The tools no longer need man to work man needs tools to function.
Another point Kubrick makes is the similarities in a child on earth to us in space. The astronauts in space have to relearn to walk just like a child on earth. Also, the astronauts have to eat baby food similar to babies on earth. Astronauts are introduced to potty training in space similar to children on earth. He try’s to convey the point that we are similar to children in space. Were fragile and have to learn to live and function again. The heavy breathing through out the movie represents the fragileness of humans with the need of air is space. Though made in the 60’s the technology is almost identical to what we have today.
Give or take the spaceships, Kubrick was very close to how we travel through space. Our ships are not as advanced as shown in the movie, but the concepts are the same. Today our ships are ran on computers just like shown in the movie. Spacesuits shown in the movie are almost identical to the ones on the movie. You can tell Kubrick wanted his movie to be as accurate as possible. Unfortunately, his predictions were to advance for our time.
My best advice for watching this movie is hang in there, try to understand the movie. I recommend doing some research about the meanings of the plot. Kubrick uses a lot of meaning behind his movie. He never really told anyone what the movie meant so its true meaning is up to interpretation. Maybe that’s part of the experience in watching the movie. Its like a piece of artwork, the viewer is the one responsible to decide what they think of it. Whether you like it or not it is up to you to determine the true meaning.














Work Cited
New Media Giants. Kubrick2001: The Space Odyssey Explained. Web. 04 Dec. 2009.

Evalutation

When evaluating something one needs summarize the thing your evaluating. However, it is an evaluation not a summary so only to give the reader an understanding of what is being evaluated. If you look at the Dawson's Creek evaluation at the beginning he summaries with a little bit of background information, that's it. Another good thing to understand is your topic itself. Research your topic that way you can add that information to help support your points. The last thing, make sure you look at the topic from all points of view and understand it fully.

Progress on the Movie

The project is going very well. Everyone is doing there jobs which is making things run smoothly. We are basing our skit of the Enzyte commercials and the style of 50's movies with the voice over. Hopefully we can get some old music to play in the background to give it more of an old effect. The first shooting of our movie is on Tuesday so hopefully we can have this project done so it can be crisp and clean to show to the class.

Advertise Yourself

As I read through the Norton Field Guide to Writing I was astonished by what writing a rhetorical essay is all about. Not only is it just an average writing project it is and advertising add. How do you grab people to read your article and state it in a convenience way is what it is all about. You could be the best writer in the world but if you can't make it entertaining for audience they more then likely wont read it. To make it easy and entertaining you can start with simple things. Your heading is a major one, whether it be the font type or size all goes into play to grab someones attention. Also your phrase in your header. Does it grab someones attention or is it an ordinary one some one would look right past?
Also when presenting information you need to sell yourself in a away. Your speech has to have structure and the presence of you knowing what your talking about. You also might want to add a couple of pictures to allow your audience to connect. Maybe a picture will say more then what ever you say to the audience. When picking a picture however keep the picture relevant to the topic at hand. All will add to the pull of the audience.

Paragraph Structure: The Pain For the Readers

AHHH! Vigorously I sweated over starting my essay. Should I start with a question or and aggressive attention getter? This indecisiveness plagued my mind on how to start the introductory sentence. Has this scene ever happened to you? I can personally say this is always a reoccurring barrier when I try to write a paper. The reason it is so hard is because you want to lead your reader through your paper smoothly. You do not want to lead them astray on what the subject is, or have them completely lose interest. By starting of with a fast past writing you can entice your reader to want more, or take interest in what you are trying to say. Like the essay about Women in science, the author asked a question to perk the reader's interest. I also did this with the question I stated at the beginning of the paragraph. There are many ways to try to get interest but the best way is your title or a topic sentence.
Titles allow the reader to understand what they are about to read. Also, titles can be used to grab a target audience's attention. This also can be said about topic sentences in paragraphs. They need to be creative and grab the readers attention while providing a reader the guide to read your paper. Allowing the reader the ease in which to read will insure they will read the text. Even though you as an author go through pain to create a great paragraph for your reader, it is worth it. Nobody wants to read a boring paragraph or essay, so grab your readers attention.

How Do You Look At Cause And Effect?

Reading through these three chapters, I gained a new perspective on cause and affect. When reading a cause and effect paper I am going to start to look for structure. How did the writer structure the essay to better state a point. Did he specifically highlight the points like one of the reading in the book. By italics or bold lettering did the author highlight the effects. Also, the author can categorize the material. All this goes in effect to give the proposal. Another tactic is the defining of words, which in reality categorizes them too. So thanks to reading these chapters I can now deliberate what the important information is and what is the useless information.

Getting the Information You Really Need

Have you ever felt like your reading a chapter out of one of your text books and you can not seem to remember it. Do you feel as though you can read a chapter out of a book and not grasp the concept of what you just read. I have this problem all the time which leads to low scores on tests and not knowing the material. By reading the chapter on how to analyze text I have a couple of pointers that could help you. Instead of reading a whole chapter as a whole read the man points as smaller chapters within a chapter. Try to understand what each point is trying to make. To help out in doing this, in the margins write the main points of each paragraph within those main points. This helps out with getting the true meaning of what the author is trying to explain to you. When finished with the chapter put all of your notes together and you have your very own summary of the chapter. I hope this helps you out cause it sure helped me out on becoming a better reader.
Another point this chapter touched on was how to read an argument. When you first read an argument, however against it you are, try to agree with what the author is saying. Yes I know sometimes this is hard and can be tough but it will help on seeing their side. After you fully understand their side try to go against it. By doing both of these things you will have understanding to both sides of the argument. Which in time will make you a better reader.
Justin Rhoades

Analyzing Material

After reading a ton of pages in a chapter that seems to never end on analyzing, I have come to a conclusion. Not only do we have to understand what were reading but who the writer is writing to. Here is an example, say Men's Health wrote and article about football and how the season was full of historical events. Running backs and quarter backs were making huge leaps in yards and breaking records through out the season. This same article probably wouldn't have the same pull if it was in one of the many women magazines. When a text is written not only is it written for a purpose but for an audience. Who is the audience one might ask, it is the person most likely to be inclined to pick up that Men's Magaizne with the football article. A typical woman is not going to walk by and think to herself "O I wonder whats going on in the football realm?" That is the whole point of audience. Not only does a person have to understand what is written but who the article is intended for. Who is the writer trying to communicate to and argue a point to.
History, being what I majored in a majority of the readings caught my attention. Through reading these stories and articles I found one that stood out of most of them. The comparison to Abraham Lincolns Gettysburg address and 9/11 speeches. It shows how the past meets the future in a since. In a time of uncertainty and tragedy our countries speakers have given us the since of hope and ability to move forward. Through the dedications on through the address you get the scenes of moving forward but still remembering.

Transformation of a Paragraph

Though never really viewed editing a paragraph this way before, I do now. I view editing a paragraph in like performing a surgery. You look at it as a whole and then try to pick it a part for the benefit of a paper. Does the whole paragraph work to present a point and if it does not what can you do to fix it? By taking the sentences out of the paragraph that do not help argue your point, should be taken out. The words in those sentences should come together to form a strong sentence. If they do not then they need to be revised. All of the components need to work for it to be a strong paragraph like a body.

Turning Your Paper into Gold

There are many ways one can turn a paper into gold. By this I do not mean literally the element gold but by the means of a good paper. There are two steps I take and the book clarifies really well. First it is the assessment of the writer. Just by reading the paper out load for clarity is one of the ways to making your paper better. Not only do I personally do this but I also look for the meaning behind my works. Because one talks about clarity in a verbal since does not mean that is all that can be clarified. The whole point of the story or paper should be clarified. Can someone get what your trying to present is a good question to ask?
The second thing is to on how you revise your paper. Whether it be simply adding more to the subject or by trying to grab your audience in. Just by understanding who your audience is can help in the revision of your paper. Another thing to add in is dialogue to a narrative paper it allows the audience to be in on the conversation. Which in the end will allow your audience to connect. By using these methods on can make your paper into GOLD.

Mind Relieveing Techniques

Although, at times coming up with a starting sentence can be a major feat for a writer, There are a few ways to help with this problem. These techniques can help one to begin or even figure out what is most important to talk about. If the writer is having trouble with figuring the main details, the " meat and potatoes" of the topic, the same technique employed in how to start can be use in the same way. Writers can use looping, outlining,webbing, researching, or even just writing can in fact help one start. I personally use the webbing technique do to the visual aspects of it. I can see the whole picture of the subject whether it is the major aspects or the lesser ones. It allows you to connect the dots so to speak and see what features branch of to form new ones. Even though this works for me many other people use other processes.
For example a person with a less photogenic mind might us the random writing or the looping. In both of these processes the writer will eventually figure out what the most important thing to write about is. Whether it's the writing of random thoughts to figure out what matters more to you or the processing the draft out to figure what is important. However, both take time but are very affective for writers. All of the processes in there own circumstances work with flying colors.
-Justin Rhoades-

The Basic Elements In A New Light

Through reading the chapters 1-5 of The Norton Field Guide to Writing, I gained a new perspective on the basic elements. Although throughout my schooling years these elements, so to speak, have been drilled in to my head, I now see them in a more illuminated way. The shear simplicity of the elements opens up new levels they hold. Use audience for example, we all assume when we are writing the assumption is we know the audience. In reality we usually do whether it be a teacher, classmate, or family member; right now I am writing for my English teacher. Although no one stops to think, would anyone out side your class understand what we are writing? A similar question, would we understand in the same context a note left for a mother like the article in the book? The answer is maybe but more then like will not. That is what made these chapters so interesting is the reality behind the basic elements. They apply in many more ways then anyone realizes.
- Justin Rhoades -