Dr. McGonical's Speech

Video games are becoming an integral aspect of our society today. Dr. McGonical made that evident when said that on average, we are spending 3 billion hours online a week. Her argument that gaming has the potential to change and sculpt the human species' future becomes even more solidified when she informs us of her PhD she earned at the University of California at Berkley, her 10+ years of gaming experience and her research at the Institute of the Future. Throughout her speech, she appeals many times to the wants of the audience through pathos, constantly reference the characteristic traits that gaming teaches young gamers: communication, teamwork, determination, perseverance and courage in the face of evil. She strengthens her argument further when she relates gaming to schooling, and that if we can focus on positive, meaningful gaming the way we do on school, we could see drastic improvements in our society. She states that the average person will have spent 10000 hours on gaming by the time they are 21, while they will also have gone to school for 10080 hours, if their attendance is perfect. Throughout her speech, she also includes a variety of references to other professional research and studies. Although credibility immensely impacts one's speech, her ability to include humor engages the audience on a different level. Not only did she include humor but she also related many of the topics to an average persons everyday life, with gaming references to desired characteristics. Personally, from watching her speech, I was motivated and I came to the realization just how important the virtual world has and is continuing to become important to our society. And I believe the closing statement was one of the best signatures to close a speech like this, "Let the world changing games begin...".

Writers on Writing

In his article, "Writers on Writing" (2000), Kent Haruf explains the nature of writing, saying it is a spontaneous, strange act that must be approached in the same way. He gives many examples of how different authors use strange techniques to influence their writing, from writing in your underwear to on top of refrigerators to in your coal room in the basement of your house with no windows. He gives us these strange examples and tells us of his methods of writing in order to insinuate that writing is an imaginative, spontaneous and bizarre and must be treated as such when writing anything. Based on his content of the article and the teaching tone, his target audience is most likely new or inexperienced writers.

CH 1 Precis

In the beginning chapter of his book, "Making Choices About Process and Rhetoric" (2010), Joe Hardin explains that there is a writing process that writers use in order to create a writing project, as well as explains the definition of rhetoric and the three appeals used in writing. Hardin depicts the writing process as a series of steps: prewriting, drafting, revising, and proofing and editing. As well as the writing process, he explains rhetoric as the strategic use of language, and the three appeals as pathos, ethos, and logos. He does this in order to give examples of writing techniques to improve overall writing skill. His target audience is again young/new college students.

Introduction Precis

In the introduction chapter, "Talent, Hard Work, and Correctness" (2010), Joe Hardin argues that becoming a successful writer requires hard work and making choices on how to best convey your ideas to the reader. Hardin argues that today's young writers are lacking confidence, not only in their writing ability but also in their use of grammar. Modern technology (texting, facebook, myspace, etc.) has given way to this lack of confidence because it allows for an "entire system of alternate spelling", which deteriorates their fundamental writing skills. His purpose in writing this article is to persuade young writers to not give up on writing and approach it as any normal job: have a plan, practice, revise, and perfect. The target audience is most likely new/young college students, seeing as how it is a book for English 101 at CSU-Pueblo.