Just Released, Foreign Policy Aficionado

Grammar

Descriptive verbs, I have a tendency to incorporate a lot of to be verbs in my writing. In order to eliminate excess to be verbs you can replace them with descriptive verbs. Descriptive verbs can be can be found by expanding ones vocabulary, and using more wordage in your writing. to view lists of descriptive verbs click HERE

America the beautiful, Dinesh D'Souza

This essay comparing Islamic vs American ideals was very intriguing to read. In fact, I can easily say that it was one of my favorite essays all semester. D'Souza does a great job at keeping this essay on point, addressing views, claims, touching on principles and following all of them through to their conclusions. Not to mention the fact that he does get lost in bias tangents, or waste time on irrelevant material. 

He clearly portrays that these two different ideologies are not merely fighting for superiority, they are fighting for survival. Both of them have respectable values, however they seriously threaten each other. D'S

ouza also does a fantastic job of breaking down each of these complex ideologies in simpler terms. Addressing what they're based on, what they're fighting for and the different fundamentals that are involved. One interesting line for me was addressing Americans that go abroad often ret

urn home with a deep appreciation of this country and its system. I spent about ten days in China in the summer of 2007, and u

pon returning home I felt I could kiss the ground I was so happy to be back and grateful for the country I live in. 

Interestingly enough in this essay, after the breaking down the complexities of both ideologies within this paper, their is a big underlining position that was failed to mention, which is the authors clear embrace of the ide

a of

 Americanizing the world for its own betterment. This view favors protecting Americas security in the name of national interest. The author shows us how we can win in liberating the islamic ideology to be more compatible with wes

tern ideology, but is force-feeding freedom really our responsibility? Is it our right to change another civilization because we see how to make it more compatible with our own, and comfort ourselves that they will be happier, or is that ju

st what we need to tell ourselves to justify our

 actions in protecting our freedom?

Dr. Charles Moseley. An Enduring Academic Legacy or Minding and Closing the Gap

I went to the extra Credit lecture last night at the tabernacle building, which was presented by Dr. Charles Moseley from Cambridge University in Great Britain. The lecture was titled An Enduring Academic Legacy: or Minding and Closing the Gap. This was a lecture on humanities and actually turned out to be very intriguing. 

The night started out with introductions and music from a couple of talented and renowned musicians playing some Beethoven and Horshack on the violin and piano, which was unexpected and jolly good. They also played a slideshow of DSC Professors' trips to Cambridge University giving humanities lectures. The pictures of the Cambridge campus looked like a mix of a garden and a library, they were very beautiful and fun to see the various culture. 

Dr. Moseley's lecture also shared some fun culture in his proper pronunciation and fun english terms like that'l be lovely, jolly good and thats grand. His talk was quite witty and humorous keeping the audience engaged. The beginning of his lecture seemed like more of a introduction to Cambridge, but as it continued it discussed the links between colleges, subjects and institutions impressing the idea that there is much we can learn from each other, and to continue to try for some kindness and understanding. His lecture conveyed personal stories, interesting quotes and pieces of history. He also demonstrated good points like, we all have things to say, and we should all listen, because both sides can benefit from each other and will continue to need each other. It was a fascinating lecture that I really enjoyed.

Grammar note, Defining the passive voice.

 In many cases you can spot the passive voice in a sentence when you see a form of a "to be" verb (is, are, am , was, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, being) followed by a past participle "ed". While the passive voice is not a grammar error, it often makes a sentence confusing. This was very helpful for me if you would like to see more on this click HERE

Rhetorical Modes

                  I have chosen to write my essay in Comparison/Contrast mode. However, for my post I found the Extended Definition writing mode, and Description mode particularly interesting.

                  Extended definition, is defining something similar to a dictionary. In fact you'll start out writing three sentences as if it were a dictionary definition. 

                 (1) First you'll state and define your term. 

                 (2) Second you need to classify the group of people, things or events it belongs too. 

                 (3) Finally you pair it with a brief description that summarizes the term. 

 Following these three sentences you will continue to define what it is your writing about. This mode of writing is one of the more difficult to use, but once you've got it down it can significantly help you to be able to write long papers, or elaborate on things you've written.

                 Description mode is similar to extended definition in the sense that its one of the more difficult modes to learn, but very beneficial to your writing once you have the hang of it. Description means illustrative detail. Description mode basically describes a person, object or circumstances in illustrative detail like painting a picture or describing a scene to someone. There are a few tools you can use to aid you in description mode, for instance describing a room starting from one point moving around the room until you've come back to that point. Another is describing a person from top to bottom. More techniques include using the reporters five W questions, who, what, when, why, where, & how, or describing action like a movie or moving picture.  all of these tools can help one to illustrate in detail what it is they want to describe. These tools applied with a basic essay structure will give a descriptive essay. 

For more tips on these two rhetorical modes and more click here