A Self Evaluation

As I look back on the writing I have done this semester, I find there are some assignments which I did moderately well and some which I did extremely poor in. Perhaps it is something in my mind which views everything at two extremes, either really good or really bad. A real problem with my writing is that I write well only when I’m in the “mood” to write. It is like a wave in the sea, rising and falling and the timings of this rise and fall are not under my control most of the time. The only time I can make this wave rise is perhaps when I write on something with my own imagination or perhaps on some general topic of the world which would be on my mind during that period of time.

Although I am not qualified enough to make a judgment on my writing (I say this because my judgment has been somewhat contrary to that of my Professor – for example, in my first paper, he gave me a ‘B’ grade whereas I thought I did not deserve more than a ‘C’. Again this may be due to my extreme mind) yet I will try my level best. Another reason why I find it difficult to reflect upon my writing is that only the papers have been graded and as there were only two papers, there is only a vague idea of what kind of writing will fetch an ‘A’ grade. Perhaps that is why I never got an ‘A’ in either of my assignments.

When I look back at my writing, the first thing which points itself to me is the problem I face in understanding the term ethos or credibility of the author. Perhaps even now, I have not figured out how the ethos of an author is established. It is said that ethos is something that is outside the writing, the credibility of the author. Well, my question is that if a person does not know who the author is, then where can the ethos come from? I never asked this question out loud and this maybe the reason why I always used statements from the writing as reasons for ethos. One example of this is in my first paper on the second last paragraph. I mentioned that some of the claims being outrageous dampened the ethos of the author but actually, it would dampen the logos.

Another thing which I struggled with was and still is causal arguments. In this entry, I found a suitable editorial on which to write the entry but I could not identify the causal argument at all. I have yet to understand causal arguments, how to understand them and how to analyze them.

The one entry which I think I did pretty well on was the blogs by Riverbend. In this entry I felt that I effectively identified the main argument of the blog entry or rather entries. I may have been over emphatic about that blog (I say this because many of the students pointed out that Riverbend had no evidential support for her arguments) but if this is true, then I feel that even blogs by people like Salam Pax (which is not even his real name as in the case of Riverbend) cannot be trusted either. I say this because even though some people have met the man doesn’t mean that whatever Salam says is the truth or the whole truth for that matter. Here, I would like to point out the story of the seven men and the elephant. It goes like this that six of these men had ever seen the elephant and the seventh was the owner or mahout of the elephant. Five of the men were blindfolded and made to touch various parts of the elephant like the tusks, the legs, the tail, the trunk and the ears. Each of the five men gave different answers as to what the elephant maybe like. One said it was like a cylinder (the one who touched the leg), one said it was long and tapering at one end (the one who touched the trunk) and so on. The sixth man was shown the entire elephant and he was the one who gave the most accurate description of how it looked like. However, it was only the mahout of the elephant who could tell exactly what the elephant felt, how it behaved and so on. What I’m trying to get at with this small story is that the people who read these blogs know only the part of the person from what they make of the writing. The person who has actually seen the person can give a better idea about that blogger than most of us. However, it is only the person that knows the blogger that can give us a reason as to why the blogger writes in a particular way and what might be going on in that blogger’s mind when a particular entry is published. It is only that person who knows more or less what the blogger’s feelings are and how true they are about a particular entry.

The other blog entries I feel I wrote well were the entry on technologies of memory, the Gallery Assignment, the American Memory Project entry and the one on Mitchell’s essay. I felt each of these entries was successful because they appealed to me in some way or the other and this resulted in a better output from me in each of the cases. All of the above, except the gallery assignment, were discussed in class and the points brought up in these discussions tallied with the points I made on these entries which is another reason why I feel they were successful in general.

The entry on technologies of memory specially and the American Memory Project appealed to me because I like to preserve my past so I can look back at it during my leisure time. However, I do not agree with the author’s (in technologies of memory) method of prominently displaying his personal life on a place like the internet where it is accessible to all of the public. Memories are special to me and I feel that they should only be shared with special people or perhaps people related to that memory. On the other hand, the American Memory Project I felt was an important undertaking as it helps analyze our society and the changes it has undergone along with providing film student to study audiences in various time frames.

The gallery assignment was special to me because I was really impressed with the museum that I visited or rather the location and surrounding of the museum. I felt that though it was a sort of narration of my experience at the museum, at the same time, I felt that I effectively conveyed the importance of such a museum or any museum in general.

Finally, the entry on Mitchell’s essay was a sort of outlet I was looking for to discuss about the perfect world. I feel that people like Mitchell look only at “the good things” in life which is to say that they have a really vague idea about the truth. What I mean to say is that when Mitchell says that E-topia is here, I disagree on that point because there cannot be an E-topia with two extremes as in one part of the world with advanced internet technology and the other where people struggle to get even one square meal a day. I felt that I emphasized this well in my entry and thus I felt that I analyzed his essay fairly well by saying that we should not be overwhelmed by what we have achieved, rather we should focus on what we can make better.

Upon reflecting back to the assignments for this class, I find that I could have done much better and there is a lot of scope for improvement. The thing that is required is practice and a lot of it. There is still the need for me to remember and understand the “technical” aspects of analyzing arguments (like identifying ethos and causal arguments) and also effectively making claims by providing evidence in support of it. I feel that these two aspects need the most work on. Besides this, I feel that I am attuned to a style of writing which would convince a particular person. Thus, I look for things that my “single person” audience looks for in an argument. This is a very dangerous thing as most of the arguments I will make in future will cater to a large audience. Besides these, there is the problem with my introductions and conclusions. Sometimes I feel that my introductions are too general (as in the case of my second paper). Again, for conclusions, my conclusions seem to be like a summary of my arguments which sounds too general and monotonous. Thus I feel that working on these things will definitely help me evolve as a writer and make my arguments more plausible.

  ¶ 6:39 PM

  The presentations of the group blogs were really well done. The first group was the luckiest as they got the maximum time (about forty minutes). The other groups did well to present themselves within the time limit. The presentation that interested me the most was the gaming one as I myself am a game freak. However, I am going to write about the "naughty athletes" presentation. The group did well to present their material. However, I feel that there was a lack of practice and coordination between them. The material was definitely good, but the presentation felt a bit informal. Not that our group did any better with ours. The overall best presentations I felt were of the first and last groups. Perhaps, the "naughty athletes" presentation could have been better if there were a few video clips of athletes misbehaving on the field caught on camera (like Mike Tyson). Another aspect according to me was that the group concentrated only on "American" sports and sports figures (there was a little mention about the Olympics but that was it). There was no mention of Maradona and his drug abuse even though soccer is probably the most popular sport around the world as a whole.
The points made about the Kobie Bryant case, were informative and well presented. There was a lot of research work involved in getting the facts about this case as well as about the drugs used in sports. Thus the effort put in was apparent.
Though my criticism maybe harsh and maybe even baseless in some instances, I hope that this will help the group in future presentations; that is my only intention.  ¶ 2:09 PM