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I chose chapter 5, “Distinguishing What You Say from What They Say”. I chose this in hopes of improving my ability to incorporate what other people say into my work. I do this now but it can sometimes seem choppy because I don’t always know how to weave outside thoughts in without it seem like I’m saying them. This chapter covered how to correctly interpret what another author is saying by looking at their background (perspective), clear signaling of who you are talking about, and still being able to weave your personal ideas into theirs while it still being clear whose ideas are whose. In my final paper I used some of the templates provided to better discuss different perspectives other authors have offered. This, overall made my paper flow better and made it easier to show different ideas. 

Kam – Overall you had a strong paper with a clear thesis. You incorporated many strong quotes and did a good job analyzing them to work for you and in terms of your narrative. There were certain places I commented on adding more information about your life and other places where you could use a quote to enhance your own thoughts and ideas. I really enjoyed reading your conclusion because I felt the reader can easily relate to the “storyline” of it and it has a catchy ending. As far as the multimodal aspect of this paper I thought you did very well. I enjoyed the formatting of it and how you took the important quotes in bold and centered them. The pictures I thought painted a good ovberatching theme of growth. The video I found interesting to use in regards quoting McAdams, it works very well. Finally, I think this was well written, once you improve on those few small aspects.

I agree with Strawson in regards to out story is ours and it is definitely biased. But I do not entirely agree with the notion that our story does not have an impact. Like Strawson says “I doubt that what they say is an accurate description even of themselves”. I am on the fence about this. I agree that since it is our story many of us want to seem “high and mighty” or like we are the all stars in our own lives. Not saying this is everyone but I believe it would be the vast majority, people comparing themselves to others.  On the other hand, I think there is a select group of people that do exactly the opposite, their story is so truthful to themselves. They analyze their own story and say “how can I better myself?”, not for the purpose of trying to outdo someone else but for the purpose of improving their own individual life which can in turn impact others. This leads into Strawson’s second point of how our individual story has no impact on others. Quite honestly I think this is complete bogus. Your story and my story might intertwine, we may share memories. Now it will not be the exact same story but there will still be aspects of both.  If our stories did not impact others this world would not function the way it does, we all work together in some way. Thirdly, I have never felt impeded by my life story. I have only felt encouraged to keep “writing” it and continuing on the adventure of life. Just because something does not go your way or you “fail” doesn’t mean it is over. It simply means that is a new “chapter” in your story. Lastly, I agree that we have many selves. The me you see everyday will be different than the me you see in the firehouse. For the most part I’m the same person but outside of the firehouse there can be a lot going on. When I walk into the firehouse, that is the only thing that matters. Not another thing in the world matters, it is all about the job once I walk through those doors. So, sure I am the same person but in a different headspace.

The whole notion of life being a narrative truly resonates with me. I truly do believe that our lives are a story and how we perceive that story is the same as our outlook on life. She quotes Dan McAdams as saying “life stories do not simply reflect personality. They are personality”. This caught my attention because I believe this to be true, when telling a story it is your story, your emotions inevitable flow into it. Another thing she said was “not only are there individual differences in how people think of their stories, there’s huge variation in the degree to which they engage in narrative storytelling in the first place”. Again, this is something I agree with. Growing up and even to this day the people I most often interact with are those that use few words. It’s like pulling teeth sometimes with them. Yet, they still have a narrative to tell you. It’s just a matter of what they feel is important and actually needs telling. Everyone has a different degree of this. Lastly she quotes Sarah Manguso for saying “narrative is not a mode that has ever come easily to me”. I am not sure if I entirely agree with this statement because our lives are all a narrative that we have all had to share with someone at some point. So, how does it not come easy to her if it is simply a part of life?

Link with highlighted words:

Copy of English Paper 1 – Metaphors

There is a pattern, I tend to use very simple words. For example I say “but”, “so” and “this relates to” very often. Instead of doing this it would be beneficial in future writing to look up synonyms and other transition words to make my work more interesting. Not only this but I tend to just repeat phrases and relate them to the general theme in different ways. This can be fixed again by using synonyms to get similar ideas across using different words. 

150 Word Note: Overall this was a strongly written essay. It was very concise when it came to concepts, and these concepts were expanded upon and supported by quotes. In the beginning it was somewhat unclear what discipline the author was talking about, but this was addressed in the second paragraph but could have been introduced earlier along with the three authors. The author did a great job or paraphrasing Lehrer and bringing it back to his overall argument. The personal example was strong but could use some work. This paper is headed in the right direction and brings up many valid arguments with supporting evidence. These concepts could easily be expanded upon which would make his argument much stronger. It may also be helpful to put a naysayer paragraph within the essay.  Finally, there were just some formatting questions that the author can revise and decide what format best suits them.