Dixonam2's Weblog

Do the ivy league colleges really give that much of an edge of “ordinary” colleges?

dixonam2 — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:01:46 +0000

In high school we always hear about those kids that got accepted into the ivy league college, such as Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and Brown. But, does getting accepted into an ivy league college really help you that much in the future? The stress that the ivy league brings to students may overshadow any advantage graduating from them gives. There is so much emphasis placed on being the most brilliant student, that there is little balance in life at the ivy leagues.

Does cryogenics really work?

Cryogenics is the preserving of bodies until a cure can be found for the illness that prevails them. To do this, a body is frozen and kept in a container for years at a time. I don’t understand how a body can be frozen and then woken up in a few decades. This does not seem feasible. Plus, there must be a significant amount of damage that occurs to the brain of the individual.

Rhetoric

dixonam2 — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:27:36 +0000

The article in CCM begins with writing about the comfort zones of individuals. This gradually introduces the audience to the topic about prisons and gains the audience’s interest. In this article, the author attempts to speak of how prisoners should be educated and not necessarily locked up in jail. Doing this would decrease the population of prisons which have been overcrowded. However, most people are not comfortable thinking that criminals are roaming the streets. So, this may not be feasible. In the second article in Writing and Place, the author starts by telling a story about the plague to interest the reader. Here, the plague is described in great detail as is the process of cleaning up after the plague to ensure that there is no disease leftover. Also, the author speaks about how the plague in a way lead to the disciplinary system. Many logos are used in telling facts about the plague. Both of the authors use pathos in order to attempt to influence the audience’s emotions.

Peer editing!

dixonam2 — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:25:26 +0000

I feel that the peer editing sessions were extremely helpful! It was slightly difficult using Wiki to do the editing, but the feedback was beneficial. Just making sure that my paper made sense by having another person read it allowed me to see what else I should do to make it better. This also aided me in figuring out if the organization of my paper was correct and flowed smoothly. The positive remarks were also good to hear because it reassured me that I was doing something right! If there was one thing I could change, I would print out a copy of the essay in order to make editing it easier.

The ten minute session was also useful. It let me get my questions answered and figure out what else I need to work on. If we had more than ten minutes, it would have been even better, but I know that giving that much time is difficult.

Urban Dictionary.. True or False?

dixonam2 — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 21:41:33 +0000

From the moment someone saw my high school displayed on urbandictionary.com, frenzy was unleashed. Hundreds of students ran to their computers in an attempt to inquire about what our school “truly” is defined as, and based this definition on a single entry on a website. Each day web surfers can visit this dictionary of said truth to search a particular place, idea, or word that they would like to understand.

Since 1999, when Aaron Peckham founded Urban Dictionary, both anonymous and known users have constructed definitions of slang, graphic, and crude terms that are heard around town. These are not filtered definitions and contain some cold words and opinions at times. However, users still rely on this sit for information.

Despite the fact that numerous web surfers agree with and use the definitions they discover on their new dictionary, Urban Dictionary, there are sometimes several conflicting viewpoints on a word. For instance, when Cincinnati is entered, definitions range from Cincinnati being described as being the best city that ever existed in the face of this Earth, to being a disgustingly bland and poor city. So, the controversy can begin as to which representation of Cincinnati is the truth and which is the exception. Due to this misrepresentation, Urban Dictionary many teams leaves the inquirer to have to visit the city and draw their own conclusions, some of which may end up on Urban Dictionary in the end.

When looking at the thousands of posts on Urban Dictionary, surfers can discover that the conclusions made get ranked on a scale of agree or disagree. Due to this, the incentive to write an obnoxious yet catchy definition increases dramatically. Truth becomes inferior to the number of viewers that are in agreement with the statement. So, Urban Dictionary decreases in reliability, but increases in hilarity.

With intriguing remarks pulling readers into the Urban Dictionary trance, the website is becoming further advertised on sites such as Facebook and has a special site for iphone. By putting Urban Dictionary out in the limelight, more surfers will come to rely on it for answers to the definitions of words. This could affect society and the views of places, words, and slang. Meanings of words could be altered as individuals change their ways of thinking because of what Urban Dictionary has told them.

How can Urban Dictionary possibly consider itself a source of information when it is constantly revising definitions from one extreme to another? Stick to Webster’s Dictionary for those words that you need to find, or visit a city and make your own opinions. Urban Dictionary is an excellent source for a laugh, but should not be read for anything more.

Hello world!

dixonam2 — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:23:15 +0000

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!