My Experience in the Writing Center

 

A trip to the writing center, while somewhat late (the only available slot was the same day it was due), was decently helpful to me. The mentor helped me to develop my ideas better, helped me to weave my miscellaneous ideas into body paragraphs, helped me improve my conclusion drastically and fixed a number of grammar, punctuation and syntax errors that I probably would’ve missed otherwise.

I went in with my original essay, about one half of my revised draft, a list of my ideas, and two different peer reviewed essays. I left with a good idea of how I could tie all of it together.

We started by her reading out what I had written aloud. This made punctuation errors, grammar errors and run-on sentences much more obvious than they would’ve been simply sitting on the paper. After reading an individual paragraph she would discuss with me what she thought about my ideas, whether they made sense and how I could build on them. She encouraged me to bring in more evidence in certain places, and helped me to make smoother, more logically-ordered transitions between each body paragraph.

It helped that she had read Frankenstein and was familiar with Genesis, for my essay revolved around both. This allowed her to understand points I was trying to make, and to help me make them more clear.

I am not very good at conclusions, so it was great that she seemed pretty knowledgeable about them… she advised me to go through each individual body paragraph and sum up the point of that paragraph with one sentence, and then to make sure that my conclusion touched on all of those points, and tied them together under my original thesis.

 

Final Project Proposal

For my final writing project, I will be rewriting my second writing project, the one about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

 

My Frankenstein essay was a B essay. I feel that my overall point was clear and could be argued well, but I think that I need to bring in more evidence (and further analysis of that evidence + the evidence I did bring in). I think my overall lack of deep analysis was the reason that my essay was too short. I would also like to bring in more from Genesis, as it was a large part of my argument but I don’t feel like I talked about it enough.

I actually feel like I did a decent job of incorporating pathos into my argument. My argument for the reasoning behind Shelley’s intertextual forwarding wasn’t an obvious point, but with my persuading and use of evidence I think I made it seem obviously true. Still though, pathos is by far the most important element of the essay so If I am going to be adding on to what I have written I will be sure to build on that particular element.

As far as grammar goes, I feel that in this essay and countless others I tend to try to fit too many words into my sentences. Sometimes I can’t decide on two terms that are synonyms, so I put them both in with a slash or in parentheses. I also sometimes form run-on sentences because I can’t choose between certain phrases and wordings so I just try to go with all of them, packed into single sentences. The result is that parts of my essay become bloated and harder to read, and therefore somewhat less persuasive.

 

Slow Down and Step Back

Regardless of whether or not they were intended by the author, there are two arguments that can be made in the online ‘text’ Star Wars, One Letter at a Time. These two arguments are derived from the fact that, displayed rapidly, one letter at a time, Star Wars(despite being a great piece of literature) is completely meaningless to us. The two reasons behind this are as follows:

 

1) The text is simply going by too fast.

 

2) The text is displayed in too little of pieces (single letters only) for us to process.

 

The first of these issues raises a point that Carr would certainly appreciate and agree with. In a world where time is money, where efficiency is everything, can we perhaps move too fast? If you sat down and stared at the rapidly flashing letters of the page, you would probably make it through Star Wars in pretty good time, but on the other hand you wouldn’t understand any of it. This is, in a nutshell, an exaggerated example of Carr’s whole point, that with new technologies (the internet), with new, instant, ease-of-access and a world of information right on the screen in front of us, our ability to focus and stay focused on what we are processing is declining. Carr describes the new medium as a “swiftly moving stream of particles”, which seems awfully familiar with the Star Wars page being discussed.

It was actually interesting that Carr used the term ‘particles’, because that is very relevant to the second issue. When we scrutinize a work in its smallest pieces, e.g. particles or individual letters, then we all too often miss the big picture. Of course, scrutinizing individual letters is another exaggeration of issue, but the point is still there. When we take a magnifying glass to the minutest of details within texts (as we are often taught to do in grade school) and try to force a hidden meaning onto them, we ironically miss the overarching lesson intended by the author. What is important is not the shape of Bilbo’s door or the color of Gandalf’s beard or exact word choice of Sam’s song, it is that the Lord of the Rings is a lesson of the corrupting nature of power and the desolation of war. This is not to say that small details are not important… one can think of them as pieces of a puzzle. It is pointless and petty to analyze every single piece and try to force meaning where there isn’t any. One should complete the work, step back, and then appreciate how all those little things come together to produce the author’s real intention.

 

This is of course just a blog post so I know that my arguments are weak and need better support/explaining, but these ARE the two main ideas that I would like to argue… I think that when I take more time to build on them (and bring in more of Carr) that they have the potential to be strong points

 

Two Different Flavors of Bitter

Like some of the previous authors we have looked at this semester (specifically Birkerts), Carr holds onto the sentiment that the internet, while promoting a great deal of things in the world of information, comes “with a price”. However from this point on, Carr strays completely from what we have heard so far.

 

First off, Carr strays from the others in terms of his reasoning behind that “price”… Carr brings forth a concern that the internet, in its vast, changing-at-the-touch-of-a-button nature, is beginning to whittle away our attention spans, and in doing so cuts away time that would normally be spent processing and contemplating whatever we are reading.

 

Carr, with a degree humility completely absent in the texts of Baron and Berry and Birkerts, introduces ethos/credibility into his argument by, instead of condescending or pointing fingers, saying that this ‘dumbing-down’ is happening to HIM. This further separates him from the other authors of the unit, who instead packaged the whole issue as a “younger generation problem”, which they of course were far too good to fall victim of. This small bit of humility and credibility goes a long way, for it puts me as a reader in a position to relate to him, instead of immediately putting me on the defensive. It also in a way establishes a form of evidence that what he is discussing really is happening, and is not just an elaborate theory.

 

Carr next strengthens his argument for the issue by introducing his ‘friends’ and associates, who he claims to be suffering “similar experiences”. He casually includes some names and establishes their credibility: “Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine”, and “Scott Karp”, who “was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader”. He even links to their respective websites. This, to me, as a child of the electronic generation, is flat-out more meaningful to me in an argument then the ISBN number of a referenced 30 year old book that I have never and will never read.

What makes Carr and his argument the most different from the previous authors is probably the fact that I find myself agreeing with them. This made me think for a while, because when simplified quite a bit, Carr’s and Birkert’s points (as i pointed out initially), are pretty similar to each other. Why, then, do I find myself liking and agreeing with Carr while at the same time refuting and scorning Birkerts? I suppose it it because they both write like the age the belong to. Carr is easier to agree with because I can relate to him… we are both members of and perhaps victims of the age of technology.

 

…It’s how you get there.

“Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication” (8)

 

This to me seems like the most direct presentation (in an altogether indirect book) of McLuhan’s overarching argument, that the most impactful part of any media is the way in which it is conveyed to us, which somewhat overshadows whatever message we are reading.

At first this argument is confusing. If one were to read a book, then the more impacting message would surely be in the words, not in the pages or the ink or the factory in which the book was produced. To understand what McLuhan is talking about involves taking a step back to look at the big picture. McLuhan is not exactly saying that the 27.9cm x 21.5cm lined pages of your notebook are more meaningful than your notes, but the general principle of conveying our thoughts, emotions, ideas, knowledge, and opinions through the medium of paper has shaped our society far more than any notes ever have.

Birkerts and McLuhan would certainly agree that in this day we are undergoing a major shift in medium, from print to electronic. They would though perhaps disagree on the implications of this change. Birkerts of course sees it as an absolute epidemic, and that in the conversion we lose countless values. McLuhan, while not exactly optimistic about the shift, is certainly more open-minded. He draws parallels to the shift that came with the invention of the printing press. He points out that before the abrupt, dramatic increase in availability, when producing texts was a “tedious and time-consuming task” (122), literature was reserved for a small, tight-knit group of scholars and intellectuals. With both great shifts of medium came a sudden ability for almost any person to access literature (knowledge, new, varying opinions of others, etc.) if they wished to.

In considering that groundbreaking shift that came with the invention of the printing press (and also the emergence of the internet and electronic media), it is easy to see how McLuhan could view that medium as more shaping of society than any of the messages it ever printed.

 

 

Holding On to the Past

Birkerts and Baron take their arguments in slightly different directions, yet both manage to come off as highly pretentious and pessimistic towards a new generation of writing and literature.

Baron argues that an increased ease of access to writing formats (the biggest example being the internet) has given a written voice to many who, according to Baron, do not deserve such a voice. This is similar yet in ways contending with Birkerts opinion, who believes that that same increased ease of access is deteriorating our wisdom and individuality and the complexity of our language. In other words, while Birkerts believes our new technologies to be the cause of his supposed literature crisis, Baron believes that the changes are simply allowing an ongoing problem to be much more noticeable.

Baron’s argument, much like Birkerts’, is mildly conceited. He, living in a country founded on beliefs of democracy, freedom of speech and freedom of the press, seems to believe that some people do not deserve to have a voice because he disagrees with what they say or he believes their opinions to be worthless and beneath his own. This I find unbelievable. He goes on to cite a number of older civilizations that had more limits on who could and who could not write, and to that I say that we are no longer living 12th century, we have advanced far past those days and now live in an age where everyone is both able and allowed to put their thoughts into writing for all to see.* Baron, like Birkerts, is living in the past.

There is one gaping hole in everything that Baron has said, and that is that no one is making him read or believe anyone else’s opinion. Just as we have the right to write whatever we want, we have the right to choose what we do and do not read, and whether we sympathize with it or not. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing with other opinions. Thinking other’s opinions are so beneath your own that they are not worth looking at is questionable, but allowable. But actually believing that some people should not be able to write and speak their own mind? This, to me, seems not only elitist but somewhat delusional.

*In the United States, at least. For the most part.

 

 

Birkerts: Into the Electronic Millennium (Conversation)

Coming to terms: Birkerts describes the past, present and future of literature in its relationship with our rapid technological advancement.

 

He argues that our new technologies are damaging the state of literature in three important ways:

 

1) Language Erosion: the deteriorating the “complexity and distinctiveness of spoken and written expression”, (which he argues are abundant only in printed media)

2) Flattening of historical perspectives: by pledging our full loyalty to the internet and technology we sacrifice wisdom and become more shallow as a species

3) The waning of the private self: The remarkable recent increase in availability of texts and information he believes will “vanquish the ideal of the isolated individual”.

Forward:

When discussing the “waning of private self”, Birkets suggest the following:

 

“We may even now be in the first stages of a process of social collectivization that will over time all but vanquish the idea of isolated individuality”

 

Forward cont./Counter:

There were a number of points brought up by Birkerts that I simply do not agree with, but this one really stuck out as a somewhat bizarre notion. He is saying that with ease of access and increased availability of texts/literature/everything will come a decrease in our individuality. I think anyone that’s really made use our increased availability hasn’t just become part of a hivemind, I think that it does the exact opposite of what he says, I think that an increased access to texts will allow a person to a wide variety of opinions and different sides to arguments and will be able to form their own, individual opinion on matters.

Take an Approach:

I decided to link to a different source/conversation. This is an article by BBC that discusses how our new technology, specifically the internet, has impacted the world of literature.

The World Wide Web at 25: Changing literature forever: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140304-it-will-never-be-the-same-again

 

Facilitate:

Questions:

• Do you think that our generation, in terms only of education and knowledge, have become too dependent on our technology? Would you be able to learn at the same proficiency using only print material?

• Do you think Birkerts is overreacting?

• Do you agree with Birkerts in that our immediate access to a huge variety of texts will deteriorate our individuality?

Personally I think that Birkerts has a dramatized and extremely cynical view on technology, and seems blind to the countless benefits that come with an increased availability and access to countless texts. Some people are simply afraid of change.

Loose Ends

Often when authors or directors try to set up for sequels, they leave certain ambiguous loose-ends at the end of their work, which leave the viewer to contemplate what happens next? Although it is unlikely Shelley had intended to write a sequel (obviously she never did), the final pages of Frankenstein bare many of the signs one would expect… the unanswered questions actually prompted the creation of numerous sequels in the film world, such as The Bride of Frankenstein.

The Bride of Frankenstein addresses one of the more obvious “loose ends” left at the end of the original work: What happens to the monster? In Shelley’s novel, the last we hear of the monster is it being “borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance”. With Frankenstein dead, we have to wonder what will happen to the monster, for Frankenstein represented all meaning in the monster’s life. Without Frankenstein, the monster had no one to hurt, no one to stalk, no one’s approval to desperately seek. Its creator, its only true link to the world was no more… so where does that leave it?

Another question worth asking is what happens to Walton. As I’ve mentioned before, there are a number of parallels between the personalities of Walton and Frankenstein. They were both smart, introverted, and incredibly ambitious. They both sought to cross boundaries never crossed before by man, boundaries that perhaps should have remained untouched. As I argued before, Frankenstein’s story served as a form of warning to Walton. This though raises the question of does Walton understand and accept this warning? What exactly does he go on to do after the novel ends? Perhaps he learns from Frankenstein and tones down his over ambitious nature. Perhaps he ignores it and continues to push into the unexplored, barren wasteland, to reach a fate similar to Frankenstein’s. Perhaps even he pursues the monster himself– we can never know for sure. Shelley has left us, the readers, to contemplate her purposeful ambiguities on our own.

 

Who plays who?

There are undeniably allusions to the Bible throughout Shelley’s Frankenstein, but, even upon close analysis, it is difficult to put ones finger upon which Frankenstein characters are being compared to which biblical figures. It almost seems as though Shelley herself could not make her mind up on which of her characters would represent who, and therefore had her main characters (Dr. Frankenstein and the monster, for the most part) represent multiple figures.

Perhaps the most striking allusion to the bible is the motif of creating life. In this way we could assume that Dr. Frankenstein is an allusion to God. His regret and absolute repulsion at what he had created (and his subsequent attempts to destroy it) could also be seen as an allusion to God, as God attempted to destroy what he had created by flooding the world in the Book of Genesis.
If Dr. Frankenstein was an allusion to God, then it follows that the life he created, the monster, is an allusion to Adam. This both does and does not match up with the monster’s reaction to reading Paradise Lost (a book he believed to be solely non-fiction). The monster felt that he was like Adam in the sense that he too was “united by no link to any other being in existence”, and yet he felt they were opposites in that Adam had come to the world as “a perfect creature”, “happy and prosperous”. He had experienced none of these things, as he was born a hideous monstrosity, immediately despised by his creator. And of course, he had never felt happiness.
And so one could argue that the monster was actually more closely linked with Lucifer, or Satan, the fallen angel. They both, for one, faced the bitter rejection of their creator, of God. There are also a number of subtle parallels drawn that one familiar with the story of Lucifer might catch on to. Both show a jealousy towards Adam. Both are overcome with hatred and ideas of revenge, and driven to evil. Both attacked their foes indirectly, by instead targeting friends (Satan attempted to turn God’s followers against him, while the monster killed and hurt Frankenstein’s loved ones).

One could also argue that either of the characters could be an allusion to the Son, Jesus Christ. In Frankenstein’s case, this would certainly be consistent with his great sacrifice at the end of the book. However it would also fit in with the monster, as both were unjustly condemned to death by hateful society, both were born by a single virgin, etc.

To Begin the Story with the End of the Story

Shelley was very clever in the way that she began the novel. She started off by conveying the scene through the letters of Cpt. Walton–a minor character with no other role in the story–to his sister, a character we never even meet. Switching between the perspective of various characters is a theme consistent throughout the novel.

Walton, in his letters, describes finding an incredibly weak, exhausted dying man among the ice. We know that this is Dr. Frankenstein. Walton says that Frankenstein is going to tell him his story, which is of course the entire novel. This technique of starting off from a midpoint very close to the end, and then having the plot lead up to that point is called In medias res, and is often employed in movies and literature. Shelley’s use of in medias res is interesting in that it does not give away the ending of the novel. If a story is simply narrated by a person, then you know that that person survives because they’re alive to tell you the story. The way Shelley sets it up, we can’t be sure what will happen at the very end, although we are already intrigued as to how Frankenstein ended up in this situation.

There is also an interesting parallel between Walton and Frankenstein. It almost comes off as a sort of warning. To begin, both men seem to be somewhat introverted, with limited friends and no inclination to socialize with those they believe to be below them. Additionally, both men share a goal of navigating the “pathless seas”, of proceeding over the “untamed element”. The only difference is that Frankenstein is at a much deeper stage… he has already tried to go where no man has gone, to where no man probably should go, and he has paid the price. Walton is just beginning his journey into the unknown, and is only just beginning to fall (his ship is stuck in ice). Both have been blinded by their own overpowering ambition, but unlike with Victor, it is not too late for Walton.