Week 3

After reading the three articles I have to say the one I am most familiar with is the Gettysburg Address. Abraham Lincoln gave this speech with the intent to start something new. In his attempt he starts off by using facts, facts about the civil war and men who died for the country. This is the start of his argumentative speech and what our English book calls factual arguments. Like the book says, “factual arguments tend to be driven by perceptions and evidence” and that is exactly true in the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln’s statement, “our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”. Well yes that is what most people would like to think, but did these facts hold true through out the rest of history? I don’t think so! Even though Abraham Lincoln tried to stop things like slavery, there was still prejudice all over against black people. It was something the people had an extremely hard time accepting after they had been using slaves for all these years past.
The other article by Booker T. Washington uses a few devices to try and capture the reader’s sympathy while also using persuasive devices to try and influence the people around him. One of Washington’s big ways he presents his idea is through a metaphor and a quote about a ship lost at sea that finally spots a friendly vessel. Washington uses this to try and help the reader understand in a more dubbed down version why racism basically needs to end and why the blacks and whites need to be able to be friendly with one another. He also uses a certain quote through out his speech, “cast down your bucket where you are” which is also the title of the speech. This is one of Washington’s ways to tell the people to stop and be who you really are, and help to make a change in society.
The article about woman’s rights was an article that presented its evidence very well. It gave reasons for why woman are important in society and what they do that makes a change. This article is also organized very well into the different sections and topics that dealt with woman’s rights and why the woman should be given them.
All three of these articles deal with equality and facts that are used to prove the arguments in a persuasive manner.

Week 2

After reading the first article, “Faith, Freedom and Bling in the Middle East” is it made somewhat apparent that the author of the article is not so in favor of what President Bush does. It is not necessarily an article against Bush but the author does throw in comments to show small amounts of opinion about the President. This sentence seemed to have a somewhat sarcastic undertone, “Blessed is the peacemaker who comes bearing a $30 billion package of military aid for Israel and a $20 billion package of Humvees and guided bombs for the Arabs”; however I do not know if it was exactly meant in a somewhat negative way. The main part of the articles point was about President Bush’s visit overseas and the treatment he was given while he was there. One of the possible arguments that the author is trying to reinforce is the statement about how “Less than a week after the president arrived in the Middle East, three violent eruptions — an Israeli raid killing at least 18 Palestinians, 13 of whom were militants; an American Embassy car bombing in Beirut; and a luxury hotel suicide-bombing in Kabul — underscored how Sisyphean a task he has set for himself”. Dows reinforces this account with Zahar’s statement of how it is the reason for Bush’s visit, just another way to possibly show how the President is not exactly “great”.

The second article “America’s Not Ready to Talk about a Black President” seemed to be interesting while extremely confusing at the same time. I did not seem to get much from this article, except for the fact of racism and how people seem to be so racist for not too many reasons. According to this article America might be ready for a black president but not ready to talk about one. Honestly to me, that does not make much sense. Unless the author is trying to say, we are ready to consider the notion to make it look like were not racists, but when it comes down to the actuality of it, we don’t want it. This article seems to be written from the perspective of someone who does not like Obama because of sentences like, “So rather than saying "Rock of Love" has more substance than Obama, reporters just smile.” However, the author wants to make you think that his opinion is the right opinion, especially by his somewhat threatening last sentence of “And if you disagree with me, then you're a probably a racist and worse than Hitler.” Now that’s a bit intense, but everyone has their own opinion, and you don’t have to be racist to disagree with the things he is saying.

After reading the article, "Adventures in Cheating" by Seth Stevenson, my knowledge for plagiarism has increased. I did not realize how easy it was to have a paper created to the exact subject matter. The article also made it seem so easy to go through college with out ever having to write anything. Even though it is not smart and you are not learning anything, it's an easy way out if you don't get caught. The article is very informative if your a college student looking for advice on which site to try and get a paper from. It seems to have a wide range to choose from with decent advice. However, what is the point of trying to get an education if your not actually doing the work. Your basically living a huge lie, telling yourself you finished college with decent grades and a diploma and never did any of the work. Plagiarism can be a serious problem, almost like an addiction if someone thinks they can get away with never having to do anything. Yeah papers can be a pain to do, but its only for the better in the long run. It gives you so much more knowledge when you have to research and then apply the material into your own creation. You never know what you might have to do later on in life, you might somehow stumble across a subject that you wrote a research paper on. Well if you actually wrote the paper then you would be in good shape, and remember things but if you never put any work into it then you would be starting all over again like you originally were supposed to in college. Doing your own work is like a building block for your future because you never know what you might run into later on in life.
The second article, "Not That There's Anything Wrong With That" also by Seth Stevenson is more about the technicalities of plagiarism and copyright. Plagiarism is equated with dishonesty while copyright is more from a legal standpoint. However, both are dishonest and completely wrong coming from any ethical point of view. When it comes to recipes, it is understandable to want copyright over them as your own. Its a way to become famous and if everyone else uses them than nothing will ever become of the original creator. I think that Lapine is being a bit over the top insisting that Seinfeld's work was copyrighted because Lapine was not even the first to come up with the idea of sneaking vegi's into kids food. It seems to be much of a jealously deal going on between Lapine and Seinfeld. Basically Seinfeld is getting more publicity for her book that shares the same ideas as Lapine's but the article is trying to reinforce that fact the Seinfeld is a celebrity and Lapine is not.
Basically plagiarism is not a smart thing to do, and your cheating yourself out of knowledge that you can't exactly get back. Sure some people think they won't ever need that knowledge but just about any job in the real word requires some sort of thinking and research or writing.