Monday, February 27, 2012

BLOG: post (select from any readings Feb 1 - Feb 20)

I chose to write this post about the readings from Chapter Nine in Everything's an Argument. I think its interesting that they used Obama and his patriotism as an example. The most important part however was it talked about the criteria for defining something. The list included: what it is, what it isn't, what it includes, specific examples, what authorities observe, what emotions does it pertain to, etc. This is important when describing anything to anyone in order for them to completely understand and be able to define it. Another quote I liked was, "...definitions matter because they are, in fact, arguments that define concepts by which we live and operate." An idea like patriotism is something that lives and something that we live through but yet has a different definition to everyone. The next quote that is interesting is, "Arguments of definition can be important and contentious. They wield the power to say what someone or something is or can be." This goes back to the idea of the importance of defining something. Because that definition holds the power to sum up an individual or thing. I also liked how they used the example of a dictionary. Mainly he quote, "...like any form of writing, theses reference books mirror the prejudices of their makers." This is interesting because we have always grown up going to references as a source of knowledge but never thought about the bias of the source.  With every kind of definition comes a different bias from the source. 

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Success at last????

Well I haven't been blogging because my book literally took forever to arrive. Here is what my confirmation email said...
Payment Processed By: Abebooks
Date Processed: January 22, 2012
Approximate Shipping Speed: 8 - 14 business days
Estimated Delivery Date: February 11, 2012
It officially got the book yesterday which the strange thing is the tracking number is broken.
http://www.packagetrackr.com/track/36092440
So instead of blogging about the assignment I am blogging about a review of Abebooks.
Shipping speed: Mediocre.
It took a little over 2 weeks to get here and since it was shipping from Kansas that means it took them at least a week to process the order. Its not horrible but not great either.
So that's about it for now.