Styelacademy #1

I use appositives in abundance in my writing. In fact, my writing is so full of appositives

my sentences last forever, which is not a good thing. When writing essays, I find that I

constantly use appositives to define things that I am talking about, and give examples of

what I think something means. This both adds and detracts from clarity. It makes it very

clear what I mean to express, but muffles my writing because appositives detracts from

the central purpose the sentence is trying to convey-essentially shrouding an intent and

idea in definitions and examples. See? I just created a run on sentence using

appositives. I end up adding so much information that I feel is imperative to

understanding what I am trying to convey, that my meaning gets lost in a sea of words.

What I hope to gain from this video is how to create appositives to help make a

sentence more impactful and less distracting. It would also be beneficial for me to learn

how to make my appositives to flow better.

From the video I learned that appositives have four main purposes: to identify or

rename, to explain or give examples of previously given sentences, to define, and to

summarize. Definitions and appositives typically occur after the noun that they are

describing. Appositives can be surrounded by either commas or dashes. Dashes help

add drama to the sentence, drawing attention to the information between the dashes. I

hope to continue using appositives in my writing, but I feel that I would benefit by using

fewer for the sake of clarity. A rule that I have been trying to implement is that my thesis

statements should never be longer than fifteen words long. Afterwards, however, I will

permit myself more words per sentence.



Appostives

Exercises

Find and underline the two appositives in the following sentence and then categorize them.


It is an astonishing thought that every last backdrop and foreprop of our lives, the sweet 

air we breathe, the cool water we drink, the speed bumps we bump over, all consist

of discrete, hollow particles, trillions upon quintillions of vacuum-filled atoms that 

will get close to each other, but never too close.

Propose: to give examples and thus define, describe

- Natalie Angier, The Canon, pp. 91


Combine all the sentences to make one sentence and to create an appositive.

1. Drew Gilpin Faust recently testified before the United States Congress to encourage the

government to fund more science research. Faust is a historian and the first woman to

serve as president of Harvard University.

Drew Gilpin Faust, a history and the first woman to serve as president of Harvard

Universe, testified before the United State Congress to encourage the government to fund

more science research.

2. The word cow contains a diphthong. A diphthong is a vowel sound that kind of glides

from one vowel sound to another.

The word cow contains a diphthong, a vowel sound that kind of glides from one

vowel sound to another.

3. Saltair was once called the Coney Island of the West. Saltair was built in 1893. It was

built on the southern shore of the Great Sale Lake in Utah. Saltair was built by the Los

Angeles and Sale Lake Railroad Company. Saltair was designed by Richard Kletting.

Richard Kletting was a Utah architect of German descent.

Saltair, once called the Coney Island of the West, was built in 1983 on the southern shore of the

Great Sale Lake in Utah by the Los Angeles and Sale Lake Railroad Company, designed by

Richard Kletting, a Utah architect of German descent.

Introduction to Styelacademy

First Impressions of "Introduction to Styleacademy":

- I don't like the narrator's voice.
- This was not meant for entertainment purposes.

Second Impressions:

- This is actually a pretty useful site.
- I might watch these even if I don't need to.

Something that I think is interesting, is individual style. You can't respectfully break the rules without first mastering them. Wolf, for instance, is obviously a literary genius but mastered simple sentences before she broke the rules and made super long run on sentences. Along the same lines, EE Cummings is able to break the rules of punctuation after he's mastered writing in a conventional manner.  Just some food for thought. Not really related to the video though.

GASCAP

Generalization: George W Bush’s speech: Freedom at War with Fear aka “You’re either with us, or against us.”

I know, I know, this isn’t an article. But it’s the perfect generalization example. Here, Bush assumes that you either are patriotic by supporting the war, or you aren’t. Some would argue that they were more patriotic by not wanting to go to war because it was the “better option” hence helping the country more than a war would.

Analogy

In President Obama’s speech almost a week ago now, he compared the threat of ISIS to the threat of Al Qaeda. This is effective in several ways. Firstly, we were essentially able to wipe out it’s top members, Osama Bin Laden and Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. This infers that we should be able to do the same. Secondly, Al Qaeda is fresh in people’s minds since it was recently the anniversary of September 11, raising patriotic emotions.

Signs

Geopolitical Risks and Markets, Economist blog, Buttonwood’s Blog (one of my favorite nerdy places to read :)

The Economist forecasts that the market are going to go down even more, and that conflict is inevitable. He compares world conditions to those at the turn of the 19th century, with dwindling markets and conflicts in many of the same geopolitical circles; between China and Japan, Western Europe and Russia, Africa, etc.

Cause

“Are Liberal Jewish Voters a Thing of the Past?” NYT, Joseph Berger

Pretty self explanatory title. His main supporting cause is that orthodox Jews are having far more children, and that politicians are starting to cater to their wants.

Authority

“Putin Threatens Retaliation against “Strange” Western Sanctions”-Moscow Times

The article states that Putin has said they will take over the the rest of Ukraine if needed. The article essentially uses his word as the only source for validity in the article.

Principle

“Fighting Terrorism under Democracy”-Boston Globe, Alan M. Dershhowitz

Argues that we haven’t been able to find the correct balance between our democratic ideals and protecting ourselves and preserving the rest of the world.  The principle used is that democracy is not working the way that it should, and appeals to the inner patriotic American.

Thesis proposal/ideas

Thesis proposal

Young Latter Day Saints are leaving their faith in droves. Materials questioning church history and doctrine are widely disseminated. Often, these materials raise issues that Millennials are learning about for the first time. This shock exposure can lead these people to mistrust what other sources have told them about the history of the church and the principles of the Gospel.   In order combat this phenomenon, we must hold honest and genuine discussions concerning historical events and controversial gospel principles in our homes and classrooms. However, this must be done using the Spirit and love in the interest of preserving testimonies, not nullifying them.

Arguments Against	Arguments against the Against
Knowledge of this information is not essentially to our salvation so there is no purpose in teaching it. We are only to teach “things essential to our salvation.”	Yes, but how can you speak against something if you don’t know what is being said against you? How can we hope to change public perception of us as a church if we avoid at all costs trying to find out what exactly they are saying about us?
Not everyone’s faith is strong enough to purposely go look for things that could be wrong with their image of the church.	It is better to find out information in a spiritually charged environment where it is easier to discern what is right and what is wrong, than to find out under your own circumstances where any number of variable factors might influence and change how you receive information. Learning about why people dislike us can actually help strengthen testimonies because it can lead to practice using the Spirit to discern what is right and wrong, true and false.
Most of it is false anyway.	Yes, but not all of it. It helps to discuss these things and help people understand that the prophets are indeed inspired and divine, but still human. Controversial church issues are also important to discuss because the church does not advocate blind following—it advocates critical thinking, use of the Spirit and understanding.
It’s better to just never know what other people are saying about us and just mind our own business.	The Gospel is for everyone. There is no “us” and “them.” We are not pitting ourselves against “them.” There is, however, differences in understanding and we cannot bridge the gap without fully understanding ourselves what the issues are and how they were formed.
Some of our history and doctrines might freak some people out.	As always, such discussions must be done with tact, manner, use of the Spirit, and the spirit of discernment.

20 minute free write, Daily Universe document

Timed write

What to write to the Daily universe about.

There should be more women and minorities in the ROTC program at BYU. Right now it is only 5% female and essentially all white, except for me. Not only is this detrimental to BYU as a whole in limiting the flow of ideas in the program, but it creates a narrow minded vision of what the army should be composed of, especially when the ROTC program offers so much to it’s cadres. 

Get rid of some of the GE’s. What if you know exactly what you want to do with your career, and your GE’s simply take up time? Furthermore, what if you are a music major? It distracts from the central focus and tarnishes BYU’s reputation.

What else

What is an issue of utmost importance at BYU? I think sometimes BYU students think they are superior to other students. I think every student should have to spent time away from BYU either in another school (especially in another state) or have mandatory study abroad programs.

It’s hard to think of things to complain about on the spot

General issues around the world

Marijuana, drugs in general, abortion, gay marriage, immigration, foreign policy, trade, feminism, LGBT rights, so many problems.

Could talk about political instability in Thailand.

Corruption in India.

Migrant workers in China.

The loss of minority languages in China.

I still like the ROTC idea. It emphasizes the whiteness of BYU, and how the rest of the world views us as this school with lots of weird people, no minorities and a bunch of white males and subversive females. The essay could focus on the ROTC program, then talk about the perceptions of the school in general and how we as students could strive to change this perception.

Could draw on personal experience—never wanted to go to this school because non Mormons and Mormons alike told me I would hate it and made fun of it all the time.

Can always talk about: 

Why people don’t listen to more classical music

Global warming

The demoralization of society

Now I’m just wasting time.

10 minutes and 16 seconds to go.

Someone once told me the church spends a ton of money trying to make their members think their church is “normal” in society. It would be interesting to do a study on whether or not we find this to be true, what mormons think of this, and what non LDS members think. But that would waste too much time and would have to be done on a much larger scale. 

- Could always write something on why people leave the church.

- Talk about women and the church. Cliche, but necessary.

- Taboo topics in the church that people don’t usually openly discuss without getting heated-the: Priesthood and women, distribution of power, etc.

Back to the ROTC thing. Why don’t more females and minorities join ROTC?

Isn’t part of their culture.

Could talk about the role of Mormon missionaries facilitating the Sino American relationship back in the 1980s. It’s a very interesting topic, but would take a lot of research to write a really good paper on it.

People say they hire Mormons because they are:

stone cold sober

follow without thinking

have no dirty history

have experience with rejection (ie) mission)

How true is it that LDS people “follow without thinking”? Would be very interesting to look into this. 

Three and a half minutes left.

Well

Um

Uh

Could always talk about pollution.

Talk about why standards are where they are. For instance, why are we allowed one piercing, but not two, or none at all? How did that get settled? How much of what we believe to be the standards as an LDS people are actual commandments and others lines drawn because a line had to be drawn somewhere? What difference is there between intent and actual outcome, and do we as a people dwell too much on the actual outcome part of the equation instead of the intent part of the equation?

40 seconds

Why we judge so much.

Why the sky is blue.

How fairy tales are unfeministic (is that a word?) and what we should do about them.