Letter to future English 110ers

Dear future English 110ers,
For me, this is a very interesting English writing class. Having to write the ARP is really no problem, but the way the syllubus have us write a research paper is very interesting. I had never writen a paper that I had analyzed something before I started doing any research on it. As weird as it sounds, it actually works. Having analyzed something before you do any research gives directions of how research is done and so the point you're trying to come acroos in the paper would be more precise as research is done according or following your original thesis of the paper. BUT, don't be afraid to change your thesis at all in the course of several drafts. Another interesting exercise was to refine our thesis in the end of the paper writing process rather than coming up with a topic at first and stick with it. You would find that the paper becomes a lot smoother. A very helpful resource of this class is actually the textbook. I know, I hate reading textbooks, too. but there are actually some pretty useful stuff in it. And the book is really easy to read as I think the author would probably taken the fact that college students don't really like reading into account. But yeah, "the method" in the first portion of the course from Writing Analytically was kind of useful for me to start my first draft of the ARP. So do the reading, it helps

Good Luck, i'm sure you'll be fine

Brian Lee

The common place articles go with a less formal tone..However, even being less formal, the authors still manages to make a interesting, valid and constructive points with their essays. The article i read,"Lucky there's a family guy" used a lot of rhetorical questions. i find this very successful as these question inspire readers to think while reading the article, but also, it makes it feel like the essay is more conversational, it is as though she is personally asking you a question with a very casual everyday conversation tone. the use of this tone actually encourages readers to actually try to comprehend the text and think of an answer to the question as readers feel like they are in a conversation waiting for a reply.

Sectioning the ARP... good? or bad?

Writing the analytical research paper for this class has been an interesting process. It kind of helps to have guidelines from the prompt, but having the paper split into three parts is a fairly new method to me. Its a little weird to first write the analytical part of the paper, then do research then integrate it into the paper. What happened in the process was that my secondary source seemed like it was an add-on to my paper and made the paper look like its separated in scattered sections. it seems like there is gonna be a lot of revising and rearranging throughout the paper writing process. The good thing about doing it in three parts is that you won't get sidetracked by the research while writing the analytical research paper. Sometimes i try to plan out the whole paper prior to writing it, this way, the research end up greatly influencing the actual topic of paper and narrowing down the content of the paper.

Rhetorical Analysis - Study model of architecture design class

For the rhetorical analysis, I decided to share one of the study models that I made for my architecture studio class. The project was to design a bike station accomodating 500 hundred bikes within a site along the olentangy bike path. I am also including yoga studios in the site to which relates to the natural environment along the river.
The model is made out of chipboard(brown) and bristle board(white). The chip board represents the contours of the landscape while the bristle board represents the additions made, such as the the bike path, bike racks(maked black), yoga studios/huts(cylinders).There are two levels as more space was needed to provide enough storage for the requirements
The idea behind is that adding yoga studios into a site with a natural environment creats flows around these man made or natural structures(quite abstract, I know). These flow patterns will serve as a principle or discipline in designing where the bikes are stored and the human circulation within the site.
The point of making a study model(even very crudly) is to help visualizing the design spatially. Sometimes, ideas actually come out from making random study models even before planning the whole design process. These study models will be viewed in different angles, additions will be done, sometimes even dematerializing it. My model clearly shows how the racks interact with the yoga huts. However, it does not show the process of how the idea came out, which is where the plans and sections of the site steps in, to explain with diagrams or text the progression of the making of the design.

Background and view on reading

Here’s a little information about myself. Although I was born here, I’d spent most of my life in Hong Kong. My family moved to Hong Kong when I was a kid and I have lived there for more than 15 years. I graduated high school last year and decided to come back for my college education. Although Hong Kong was a British colony for quite a while, the primary language there is still Cantonese. English would be a second language which was a required subject to be taken in all years of schooling. Since English is not our primary language, schools in Hong Kong did not have their focus in English literature. That would also be the reason why we don’t have any research paper assignments. The goal of having the English subject in most schools is to improve the skills in practical usage of the English language. There was also not a lot of reading involved in the studies. Hence, reading long complicated articles had always been an issue for me. Being an architecture major, this issue of mine is most evident when I am reading for my architecture history class. As a reader, I prefer reading materials that are less formal. The sense of the material actually talking to you casually holds my attention the most. In my opinion, to be able to actually convey the message clearly is the most important factor of writing, especially public writing. It is very unsuccessful even if an article is elegantly written with multiple message in one sentence but the reader find it very hard to comprehend.