Essay 1 Readings

In my English course, we had a discussion about what we read. We read about six essays which were mainly about how technology is changing, or even more specifically, cyberspace. Most of these essays talked about our ever changing technology in a good manner, although some did not. Our discussion in class helped me better understand what these authors were trying to convey in his or hers text. It added to my own opinions and thoughts when I heard some of the other student’s thoughts on these texts.

After reading Woodcock’s essay, I found that I could understand it quite well. The author made efforts to clearly explain his point. He started by showing what time was to man, and how it was first measured. He then explained how time’s measurement and role changed as our technology understanding increased. In paragraph 1 the author says “Time was seen in a process of natural change, and men were not concerned in its exact measurement.” This leads me to think that men had no use of clocks or the exact measurement of time. In the next few paragraphs, Woodcock explains how time’s measurement improved and got increasingly accurate. He gives us the assertion that, after this improvement, “the clock dictates [people’s] movements and inhibits [their] actions.”

While reading through George Woodcock’s essay, I came across an interesting sentence. It went like this: “the clock turns time from a process of nature into a commodity that can be measured and bought and sold like soap or sultanas.” This rhetorical device catches my attention because it’s unexpected and it places a mental picture in my mind. The rhetorical devices in George Woodcock’s essay make the text more interesting. These rhetorical devices often help the reader to understand what the author is trying to convey in his/hers essay more thoroughly. 

Rhetorical Devices Link: http://www.virtualsalt.com/rhetoric.htm

The role of Grammar in Writing

Lately, in today’s modern society I have noticed a lot of people using truncated words like ‘u’ for ‘you’ and the number ‘2’ for ‘to’ or ‘too’ when they write to their peers. They write to each other in a way that they think is fast and efficient. Most people use this way of communicating to get a quick note across. I think that this is certainly fine, but I find it disturbing when it turns into every e-mail, every text message, every blog post, and letter. Although using a single letter instead of a whole word may be faster, it is certainly not any more grammatically correct.

I believe that grammar is extremely important in writing; I honestly don’t think anyone should write anything without at least some standard of grammar. When we write, we should write in a way so that everyone, who chooses to, can read and comprehend our writing.

What if grammar started to lack in our society? What is going to stop other things from lacking as well? Imagine a business whose website’s content has sentences like “100% satisfactun or you're muny back garuntee!” It would make me ask (possibly legit) questions such as: “I wonder if their customer service is as bad as their spelling?”

If you read the Jack and Jill excerpts, you will notice that punctuation is everything. It changes the whole meaning of the excerpt if you just move a few periods and commas around here and maybe change some periods to exclamation points there. People form in their mind what they think you mean by the way you write and your grammar usage.

Even if I had the power to change grammar’s standards in our society, I wouldn’t. I feel it plays an important role in our ever changing world. I fear that, without it, we would become uncivilized people.


Link: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/