“Who’s in Charge of the English Language” is
an article from The Exchange. In the
article, the authors, Casey Miller and Kate Swift strongly emphasizes on the
necessity of the cautious and prudent attitudes when writing a gendered terminology.
Miller and Smith begin their article with the main purpose of their writing: “In
order to encourage the use of language that is free of gender bias, it’s
obviously necessary to get authors to recognize gender bias in their writing”. Stating
the thesis statement in the first sentence of the article might be seen to
simplistic and tedious beginning; however, it gives clue to the audience and reinforces
the subject and the authors’ view for the entire article. Shortly after the
introductory paragraphs, Miller and Smith write about the first exigence, “female-negative-trivial”,
which is a linguistic syndrome that considers “feminine” words as negative and
trivial, whereas “masculine” words as positive and important. To illustrate
this syndrome clearer to the audience, Miller and Smith give an example of a
pair of words related to gender words (“womanly” and “manly”) and its
definitions from the dictionary. On the second exigence, “The Slippery Slope”,
Miller and Smith use logos and ethos as means of persuasion to convey their message
better to the audience. To explain the meaning of “the slippery slope”, Miller
and Smith appeal to Douglas Hofstadter’s ethos in his book, Metamagical Themas. The idea of “the
slippery slope” is simply that because common gender word and the masculine
word are equal, the feminine word is no longer used. Giving a reasonable example
that falls under the idea of “the slippery slope”, such as the word actress,
which became archaic, Miller and Smith also appeal to logos to show the
audience how this idea affects our everyday life. For the third exigence, “Resistance
to Change and the Problem of Precision”, Miller and Smith appeals to all three
types of appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos. Miller and Smith use ethos and
logos, when telling the anecdotes of Alexander Gil and Lord Chesterfield rejecting
to revise the problem of precision of the gender related terms. Miller and
Smith also rely on pathos of Lynn White Jr.’s writing “The penetration of this
habit of language…implies that personality is really a male attribute, and that
women are a human subspecies….It would be a miracle if a girl-baby,…could
escape some unverbalized wound to her self-respect.” This quote from White not
only made the audience feel sympathy and compassion for the little girl, but
also made the audience recognize how essential this issue and the invisible
effect are. Overall Miller and Smith fully achieved their purpose by focusing
on their argument with rational examples and logic.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Tips on How to Say "Something" in 500 Words
Many colleges
require a lot of essays in order to develop their students’ critical thinking
skills; however, most college students are struggling with writing college
level essays, not putting much effort in their essays, and perhaps giving up on
them. As a freshman, I also have a hard time writing essays, because I am not adept
at how to expand my thought without repeating the same thing and which words
should I have to use to make my sentences live and illustrative.
In the essay, “How
to Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words”, Paul Roberts gives college students 9
helpful guides on how to make their essays lengthy and look more creative and
interesting than just typical banal college essays. Among the Robert’s 9 tips
for writing a college paper, 4 tips have deeply inspired me and hopefully my
writing skill. One of the 4 tips is avoiding the obvious context. To write an
exciting essay, I learned that I should not use the information that everyone
can think of, instead think of my own reasons or unexpected ideas. Second tip
is taking unusual position when I came to take a side and make a point. By
taking the unpopular position, my paper will look more creative and fresh. Third
tip is slipping out of abstraction by making concrete examples and situations
to show the points of the context clear. Finally, the last fourth tip is using
colorful words rather than using colorless words to make the sentences more
vivid and picturesque. However, Roberts warns that when we add some examples and facts to the main point, we should not add distracting stuffs, but rather add some details and display the examples in the context for better understanding of the audience.
After reading
this productive essay, “How to Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words”, I realized my previous essays are full of trite cliches which are so useless and meaningless. However, I also learned 9 great tips on how to write "something" rather than "nothing" in 500 words. I really want
to recommend this amazing essay to fellow college students and to those who want
to write intriguing essays rather than boring and trite essays.
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