In the paper by Julie Beck she covers many thought provoking ideas presenting different details about life and stories. Many of these ideas were very relatable and after reading I would agree to myself about what I had just processed. One of these moments was it said “Ultimately, the only material we’ve ever had to make stories out of is our own imagination,and life itself.” and how is storytelling “is a way of making sense of the world around us. I thought this was very powerful because the storytelling essentially revolves around every individuals personal feelings and experiences. No way can tell you how to write your own story of “life” without the direct compliance from the storyteller. I also found it interesting when talking about human communications and questioning the life story and psychological thinking behind it. In this paragraph it talked about how it would be an “impossible question to address from a scientific approach”. Previously I have also thought about similar instances like this and I really agreed with the thoughts that not everything can be explained through science and boiled down to a direct equation. Life simile is not that easy and down to a tee in reality. A few times during my annotation I came across some confusing idea and details that I didn’t quite understand. I understood most of the topics connecting back to the main points coming across but some still left some questions marks. One of these question marks was talking about the mode of human cognition and how it related to a narrative mode. During this topic Jonathan Alder claimed “sometimes in cases of extreme autism, people construct a narrative structure for their lives.” I kind of understand the general direction this was heading but couldn’t quite grasp a full understanding which may have been helpful to the overall piece. In all though I acquired a deep understanding of the piece and connected well with the author and their thoughts.
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The 4 areas from the rubric that provided me with the greatest learning opportunity was the organizational part about the flow and logical path of the essay as well as my conclusion rooting my paper and introducing new directions of thought. The two other areas of the rubric was one of the Watch out for sections talking about the writer as driver section and the watch out for section in the conversation.
-The organizational part talking about the flow of the paper was very beneficial. After my first peer review I got a few comments about the corrections in grammar and the overall flow of my paper. Through this clarification I better understood the changes to my writing needed.
-Introducing new direction of thought was a very important topic covered that I looked into and helped me change my essay. I believe that I ended my essay with my overall conclusion very strong I just need to improve upon my body paragraphs.
– watch out for section of the rubric was very beneficial in my editing which gave me an idea of what to look out for and change. This helped with my flow of paper and aligned well with some of the comments I received during my peer editing session.
-A different watch out for section also gave the greatest learning opportunity. It made me understand the supporting evidence and comments I had to support my quotes with and how best to connect them back to my main topic. My paper while giving some supporting evidence and commenting could really use extra support and through the watch out for section I became aware to look out for it.
Many of the things talked about in Lamott’s description were very similar to my first writing draft. When writing I thought of many different ideas along the lines of my main topic. I tried as best I could to connect everything and make it sound like i was flowing smoothly, but most importantly I wanted to get all my ideas down very similar to what was talked about in the description. I however believe I expended very well on all my individual topics leading to a well thought out and comprehensive set of ideas. While my main focus was on completing all the general ideas and background I had an overall strong first draft, that with several changes, can lead to a very solid paper.
- My goals for my paper are to improve on my overall flow from passage to passage connecting back to my main topic layed out.
- I plan to first go over my introduction paragraph reviewing my main topics layed out and my overall argument. Then on from that I plan to read through my individual the individual body paragraphs making sure they connect and make sense with my main topic/thesis.
- My biggest challenge ahead of me is going to be to reread and understand how I want to narrow down my argument with supporting pieces which would lead to a flowing paper.
- I plan to use my peer review comments as a source of information for possible change as well as exploring others blogs and getting a better understanding of changes they may need to make to their paper which would also be beneficial to mine.
During my peer writing I was very surprised with the quality and overall organization of the piece. The quotes were well embedded into the paper and clearly analyzed and supported. They all flowed well and connected back to the main thesis. There were however some changes I would make to the writing. Certain phrases and ideas, while the general concepts were there, were sometimes confusing and could have been reworded and organized in a different way to make sense to the reader. General spelling and grammar, while not necessarily the main focus of the peer review, was very good with hardly any mistakes. One suggestion I would give though would be to just be more clear with some transitions to give a real understanding of the main idea for the paragraph.
Humans possess the power to move mountains and drain bodies of water. We have the ability to literally end all life as we know it essentially bringing the end of civilizations that have come and gone entirely. And yet out of all the physical power we, the human race possesses, nothing really compares to the mental and psychological power we have over each other. Somehow though throughout our normal days we are quite blind to this psychological manipulation and influence going on in society. It’s not until taking a step back and analyze these effects do you really get a true understanding of the gravity of this situation people have put themselves in, many times unwillingly. One of the major factors in this psychological and mental influence are the use of metaphors. While metaphors may seem harmless, thinking back to a high school English class to where you had to analyze a text to find metaphors, this may be entirely false. Metaphors and the use of them seemed to have originated and were really empowered through society. Society has spread these metaphors all throughout aspects of life surrounding with no real escape. Most importantly metaphors create expectations. These expectations can be very dangerous and lead to major let downs. With expectations such fighting cancer as a fight, so just stay strong and work hard. This may be detrimental in a way that due to the psychological stress of being apart of a “war” it takes a toll on a person affecting mental and emotional health. Weapons like metaphors are among the strongest destructors in mental and emotional health.
The Trouble with Medicine’s Metaphors
“Ive long wondered whether that word-fighter-and the other military language used to help her conceptualize her disease did more harm than good”
I believe it depends on the specific type of person. Some people take a challenge a certain way and can either prosper or they crumble under the pressure.
“Metaphors are a fundamental mechanism through which our minds conceptualize the world around us, especially in the face of complexity.”
I agree with this quote because metaphors really give a better understanding of words, situations and ideas. Many of these can be very complex and difficult to understand but with help from metaphors people get a better understanding of the literal definition and meaning of the actual word.
“Indeed, for many patients, thinking of their treatment as a fight or battle may be helpful, an important part of their journey, invoking ideals of courage, resilience, and determination”
This adds to the conversation about whether the use of military language and metaphors are actually a negative to healing or a positive which actually impacts the process positively. In my opinion even though never personally never having to go through something like this, I believe I would be positively affected and very motivated by military language and metaphors as if I was in a fight for my life.
SEE THROUGH WORDS
“These two competing theories pose a question: do people interpret new metaphors more easily when the comparison between two domains is apt that is, when the two metaphors seem to fit with each other.”
This quote has some relevance because it posees about how people perceive metaphors. Many people can look at them different ways and react dissimilarly to others.
James Geary TED Talk
“Sadly, its metaphorically true. And the metaphorical truth interfere with our ability to identify it as literally false. Metaphor matters because it’s around us every day, all the time. Metaphor matters because it creates expectations.”
People have there own perceptions of metaphors and their meanings. They affect individuals differently and can lead to different feelings on metaphors.
My second reading experience of See Through Words was very different compared to my first experience. During that first reading I struggled to really understand a lot of what the author was trying to argue and the key ideas he was trying to get across. Many of the metaphor were very hard to connect with like about the paintbrush being like a pump and the comparing of metaphors to a room. Reading through this again allowed me to take my time deciphering the text and gave me another chance to connect and understand the metaphors more in depth. Similar to my previous reading of the two different theories about metaphors and their structures I still came to the same conclusion, which was the metaphors are really dependent on dual-references and categorism. However, unlike my first experience reading and annotating the text I more clearly understood the other theory about the multistep process of metaphor design. After reading that for the second time I saw it much differently, but still ended up agreeing with the previous theory I had already understood. One very positive moment in my second reading experience when I came across the term pseudo-mistakes, which really confused me and my understanding of the concepts talked about in those couple paragraphs. I was then able to have a clear understanding of the couple paragraphs which I believe resulted in a more overall complete understanding of the whole. This second experience was very beneficial, and it is clear to see why multiple revisions and overviews should be made in any piece.
Helpful Resource to help “Clear the Fog”-https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Psuedo
When reading through Michael Erards work I noticed plenty of theories about metaphors. This included what the meaning of some of the structures were and the origins behind the creation of specific metaphor. I had to polar opposite reactions to two different theories I had come across. One of these theories discussed was about how metaphors are really categorisation proposals which are “suggesting that one things belongs with another.” I related to this theory because it connects and follows along the same lines that I view metaphors. When reading this it just made sense to me; I understood when creator of the theory, Princeton psychologist Sam Glucksberg, described the categories that separate different metaphors are how they are meant to be distinguished and why metaphors seem to have any connections at all. One of the major points in his theory was about how metaphors have ‘dual reference’. This essentially targets how people categorize certain words leading to a combination of ideas that according to one point of view have no correlation but according to another match together perfectly. The other theory, created by psychologist Dedre Gentnerclaimed that there are two steps in the creation of metaphors. In the first step the concepts are matched. This means that the two specific ideas are identified. The second step in this would then be the comparison of the two individual concepts which finishes in the result of a metaphor. This theory is both confused and unnecessarily long. I understand the overall concept of it but the first theory is a simple concept to grasp which simplifies the idea of what a metaphor means.
My second experience with James Geary greatly differed from my first experience. Throughout my first experience watching the TED talk, it took me a while to fully understand all the examples and specific metaphor that were given. I understood the main ideas and thoughts about metaphors Geary was introducing however did not grasp the entirety of the whole talk. During my second experience with Geary as I was annotating his whole transcript from the TED talk I got a deeper understanding of what Geary meant. Every single metaphor example was clearly spelled out for me, allowing me to annotate and add my own thoughts. As if having a conversation with Geary I layed out my opinions and concerns as well as questions about his text that confused me. Ironically as I continued reading some of my questions were answered as if we were partaking in a back and forth conversation. During my second experience, as opposed to my first, I became deeply fascinated with the specific experiments he talked about. This kept me thinking about all humans different ways of thinking and how sometimes with the same “push” can be persuaded into thinking very similar. Although I wasn’t watching James Gaerly on screen for my second experience I felt more connected and immersed in a deeper conversation with the man, who I had never met or heard of before. Annotating allowed me to organize my thoughts and gave them to me easily accessible to the point I was able to understand and think deeper about the subject than I ever had during my first experience.
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