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Our group was assigned to read “The Pregnant Pause”.

In this article, the authors used a lot of pronoun “we” as the subject of sentences that they used to show points of views or statements. A fair amount of modal words such as “could” or “should” were used in this article.  From which we can see that the authors were trying to provide an objective perspective. However, modal words also have the function of implying uncertainty. Main verbs such as “think” or “claim” were seldom used for the authors were having a strict and scientific attitude. And the article was not using conversational markers at all.

From all above we can say that this is a very scholarly article and can be considered as a little hard to read. It is good for a academic paper. However, I don’t expect my paper to be like this for I want my paper on recreational culture to be more readable. I think that I am going to use a lot of pronouns to show my personal opinions about my sources and also some hedgings instead of compromising about those points of views that I am not agree with. I will try to use formal written because I want my paper to be scientific and, of course, formal. But I will also try to make it readable so that it can have more readers.

Claim: “Priv-lit” narratives claim to portray a path enlightenment that is achievable through hard work and dedication, when in reality they are promoting consumerism and causing insecurity.

Ground: Marketing to women is redefining “empowerment” as the power to spend your own money.

Warrant: Self-help literature’s implication that self-improvement is contingent on spending is a result of the marketing climate which encourages women to be consumers.

Backing: Priv-lit attracts people with a hidden anti-feminist subtext that women should be healthy so people will like them and they will be attractive and successful.

Rebuttal: Some narratives show sell-realization as something that can actually be attained by hard work (Paige Williams).

Qualifier: Priv-lit shows few signs go going away but there is hope that more realistic and cost-free self-help paths will become popular.

My first paper was about binge drinking as a part of party culture. So I think my second paper is going to be talking about the same topic. I want to do some research about how many students on average are involved in crimes or other kinds of trouble because of drinking. And also I am going to examine the health risks of binge drinking. I think I will also look into proposals and idea about how to reduce binge drinking.

1. Is it better to make the paper more focus on the argument than to detail the examples?

2. Do you want us to turn in our paper as hard copy or electronic version? (This will determine if I should go and buy some new ink for my printer.)

3. Will the final word number influence our score for the paper?

On page 16, the author writes: “Concepts of ‘good taste,’ appropriate conduct, or aesthetic merit are not natural or universal; rather, they are rooted in social experience and reflect particular class interests.” What does he mean by that? Can you give some examples?

In nowadays’ society, concept of “good taste”, appropriate conduct, or aesthetic merit are not natural or universal. But they actually have somewhat the same perception in certain group of people. These people with same perception toward “good taste” are more likely to be highly educated. Their possibly same growing up background and earliest experiences nurtured them with social standards that are accepted by “normal people”.

However, in fans’ world, they are always zealous about things that are not universally acknowledges. Just like those popular stereotypes about fans that are mentioned in the excerpt, fans usually brainlessly buy things associated with their loved things, devote their lives to the cultivation of worthless knowledge etc. Actually these are not only stereotype, they summarized things that fans always willing to do, which shows their taste and values toward life.

However, some other things are considered as alien to mainstream values while those tastes above are considered as normal taste. People are always interested in those can make up things they lack deeply in their heart. For example, fans’ mania towards comic or TV show may be caused by their lack of confident. They would rather like to immerge into their own little world than to interact with people. This kind of lack of confident is seldom to be seen on highly educated people. This fact proved the importance of social experience and particular class interests and how they reflect on people’s taste.

In Eat, Pray, Love, the author described a woman who dropped off everything and went to an Ashram in India to look for inner equilibrium. In the provided excerpt, it’s obvious that the author used a lot of emotionally neutral adjectives to make the atmosphere divine, sacred peaceful and casual. But meanwhile, Her using rational explanation made readers felt that the woman was not fully convinced by the Guru that she was looking for, which she was still balking at sometimes. This two different using of expression successfully built up a contrary situation, which showed the willing in her mind and her inner side of western culture, respectively.

However, the article Eat, Pray, Spend unveiled the cruelty of reality, used a large amount of numbers and data trying to make the whole article more precise, powerful and convictive to convince reader that it’s even harder for women to find equilibrium in their lives. To use numbers and data is a good way to present facts when someone is trying to convince a group of target people.