#4: 3 and 3

Quick tangant from our assignment: 

Me this morning.
via GIPHY

My parents left for a vacation to Europe this morning without me. Sad morning as I said goodbye to them at 3:30am!!!! Which by the way I could not go back to sleep which was highly frustrating. So I got 3 hours of sleep. While laying awake after they left I was thinking to myself well shoot, here I am trying to better my future by getting an education (which is a good thing) but I missed an amazing opportunity to travel and see the world. Soooo on that note, take into consideration I am very sleepy so I apologize in advance if this blog totally blows. 

Any who...when I first opened the link to our optional readings I noticed right away a lot of the readings had to do with politics. I am not the biggest fan of reading about this years election. There is so much garbage out there I would rather my mind stays clear. What I did like though was every article that I read was short, sweet, and to the point. They were all super easy reads compared to Ms. Devitt.

 In my opinion, I enjoyed reading the JSTOR articles a lot better than the opinioned ones. What appealed to me is that they were more fact based arguments with subtle opinions from the author. The three JSTOR articles I read were "Where American Public Schools Came From" by Livia Gershon, "How Does the Language of Headlines Work? The Answer May Surpise You" by Chi Luu, and "Stranger Things" and The Psychic Nosebleed" by Liz Tracey. All three of these articles valued a strong ethos. All three authors seemed knowledgeable about the subject they were discussing. They used the research of others to back up their argument to make them more credible. In just a short amount of words, these authors got their point across and created a trust with who was reading. I never watched "Stranger Things" before, but after reading Tracey's article, I found her credible by her using sources. Even though I did not know everything she was talking about since I did not know the full background story of the show, it was still an interesting read. It makes me want to watch it. I also really enjoyed reading the article about headlines. Luu mentioned in the article something called Clickbate. They are essentially attention grabbing headlines that do not lead you to a real article to read. Luu took a topic people can relate to which made it interesting while at the same time getting her point across how these headlines catch you in. 

OH my goodness. No joke I am falling asleep. I cannot stay up. Just a little bit more. Cannot do it. 

Ironically here I am voicing my opinion on which type of article I like better, and I did not like the Op Ed ones. It is much easier to right about your opinion than to do research. So I get why authors would rather just say what they think. The only work it takes is to make what you have in your head sound good on paper. Op Ed reminds me of blogging in a way. What you want to say you can say it. It is after all your opinion. Granted, authors are doing a lot more than voicing their opinion they are also trying to convince the reader to think how they think. Now that can be more challenging. Op Ed authors appeal to pathos to evoke emotions out of people, good or bad. These articles are written to get people thinking and so that what they wrote can be a topic of discussion. 

Alright my friends. It is time for me to take a long nap! I am so sorry for this hot mess of a blog. 

Hoping to get my beauty sleep, 

Allison Starr