Weekly Blog 11_Lunkun Deng

Study abroad alone requires perseverance and adaptive capacity to live through the everywhere toughness in an unknown environment but rewards the student who acquires that qualification with achievability of managing it presently and the fearlessness of the difficulties in the future.

Nick's sentence

Success on the basketball court requires the hard work and dedication of a team to overcome the pressing and fouling of their opponent but rewards the team who acquires the right mentality with the satisfaction of winning the game and the confidence to beat any other opponent.
Nick Curosh

George Orwell’s thoughts on the use of the English language in politics can still be applied to today’s world. Today’s leaders think of themselves in a position of power over every citizen that they do not wish to relinquish to anyone that may have differing views from themselves. These politicians try to use a language that utilizes words that have a hidden meaning or meanings that are open can manipulated. The main reason that the citizen cannot fully understand the language used against them is that they have been trained by authority to understand less. Instead, citizens are not able to accurately gauge politicians and base their election choices on overused and meaningless words in the politician’s hollow language.

For this paragraph, I left the first and last sentences the same and only changed the two that are in the middle. The two in the middle contained words that were useless. I removed the useless words and rewrote them to be better understood by the reader.

Brandewie's Paragraph Revision

In today’s political climate repetitive language is reiterated to excess. Politicians, especially the candidates in this upcoming election, like to simplify the issues with repetitive language. Barack Obama and John McCain continue to harp on the message “Change” in his 2008 campaign. However, in many of these speeches they both fail to mention what facets of government he plans on changing and how they will change them. Both candidates, as in every recent election, have harped on “reforming” separate branches of the government. However, both candidates are rarely specific on what exactly they will reform. On John McCain’s website, a table shows his policy on all the issues including healthcare. All of the issues are stated in broad terms, and say nothing about how he will implement policies. To illustrate, he says that he will make health care more available and responsive for patients. This response on his own website to his policy on health care is not something concrete, rather the message that is extremely broad. In the presidential debates, Barack Obama has continuously said the same things about making health care more affordable and accessible without explaining action he will follow eihter. Unclear speech is used by many politicians to gain support from people without the people actually knowing what the politician’s plan is. In the presidential debate, John McCain has been the perpetrator of bad English. McCain was asked the question “where do you stand on the financial recovery plan?” in the first rounds of the presidential debate. Instead of saying if he was in favor of the financial recovery plan, he twisted his language to advocate how proud he was to see that the financial crisis was beginning to end. This kind of unclear, general speech has been the backbone to many horrific oppressive governments. Also, phrases such as “War on Terror” and “Weapons of Mass Destruction” have been used to over generalize many of our problems overseas. These powerful yet empty words incited support for the Iraq war even though in hindsight, they had no application to the war at all. These catch phrases might seem good to simplify the problem for voter, but they fail to explain the politician’s policy to solve the problem. For example, every president since Richard Nixon has mentioned the importance to end our “dependency on foreign oil.” Countless candidates have said they will lower our dependency on foreign oil, while America’s foreign oil consumption has tripled. Talking in general catch phrases wins votes, but does not attack the issues that need to be solved.

caleb w

The egalitarian style of writing is far more effective than the traditional style. The egalitarian style of writing allows one more freedom to write as is pleased and not be bound by the shackles of traditionalism. Modern society is undergoing constant change and with it the language must change. The writing styles of a people cannot be left in the dust and become something that holds them back. When I grew up and went to grade school this was how we were taught to write. We made use of journals and notebooks and were told to write freely and openly. Brainstorming played a key role, and was done before every assignment. The traditional way of writing is not as effective as the egalitarian and is losing its place in modern times. While the egalitarian style of writing is more effective, the traditional style of writing is of importance for one to know. David Foster Wallace considers this style of language to be the language of power. It is the language of power, so we must know it. If you wish to get into to college of your choice, or advance yourself in a career, you have to have at minimum a basic knowledge of this style. This style is the norm for jobs, resumes, and college applications. These things are a crucial part of personal advancement in our society, and as long as this is so the Traditional style of writing should be learned by all.
I made this paragraph more clear and really cleaned it up. The flow is much smoother and transitioning I think has improved greatly. I changed a few of the words. The paragraph is more grammatically correct.

Weekly Blog 8_Lunkun Deng

Just as David Foster Wallace has pointed out, there are usage wars within English, and he illuminates some reasons for the usage wars. Usage wars broke out for factors such as the difference of geographical backgrounds, race, level of education and social status. Similarly, these factors lead to the usage wars between languages, especially between Chinese and English. However, the “Usage Wars” between Chinese and English are slightly different from what David Foster Wallace describes in the “Usage Wars” inside English, which have prescriptivists and descriptivists in it. In the “Usage Wars” between Chinese and English, English is now acting as a prescriptivist in the wars, safeguarding the “Tradition”. Meanwhile, Chinese is on the prescriptive side as well, but challenging the authority of English Usage. I used to learn standard Chinese, following Chinese traditions. Living in China, I spoke Chinese most of the time, both at home and in school. I have been a prescriptivist in Chinese, and I have tried to be a prescriptivist in English. Now the language I am using is transferring from Chinese to English. Even though I have been learning standard English, especially the usage rules of English, I am still greatly struggling with English usage. I conclude my situation into a “Usage War” between Chinese and English, since as a non-native speaker of English, sometimes I make mistakes unconsciously. Why will I come across the conflict between these two languages? Taking David Foster Wallace’s point of view into account, I think my “Usage Wars” break out because of two main reasons. One is the level of education in English I have received. The other one is the “Language Gap” between two languages, Chinese and English, from two different language systems.



I rewrite this paragraph in the following three aspects.

First, I improve the cohesion between sentences. For example, the first several sentences now have a common topic. In the first two sentences I talk about the “Usage Wars” in English. The third sentence makes a smooth transition. Then from the fourth sentence on, I describe the “Usage Wars” between Chinese and English.

Second, I clarify some specific concept in the paragraph. In the second half of the paragraph, I explain what the “Usage Wars” between Chinese and English means to me, a non-native speaker of English.

Third, I make some changes regarding to grammar and English idioms.

All above, I think my new version present my audience more clear and thoughtful ideas.

Jake's Revised Paragraph

Another trick President Bush used in his speech is meaningless words.  Meaningless words are often used as a crutch to make a point; however, sometimes these words are used dishonestly.  Bush always talked about weapons of mass destruction at the beginning of the war, but what exactly are these weapons he talked about?  I, as well as the America, heard politicians talk about these weapons for so long, that now this phrase is meaningless and no longer has an affect on people.  In “Politics and the English Language” Orwell states, “Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way.  That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different” (162).  The weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were not as bad as President Bush led the American people to believe.  Therefore, the quote by President Bush is an example of a person having his or her own private definition.  Yes, if the weapons were being built then it would be horrible, but looking back we now know that Saddam Hussein was not building any of these weapons.  President Bush not telling Americans everything he knew about the weapons of mass destruction he was caught being deceitful.  This shows that Bush has been dishonest in some ways to make a point.  President Bush used the phrase “weapons of mass destruction” dishonestly to get into the war and now he does not have a way out.

In this paragraph I edited many mistakes.  In the second sentence I used the word "often" twice.  I kept the first often, and changed the second to sometimes.  After the question I asked, the next sentence I used the formula Professor Benedicks suggested: " ____ was so x THAT y."  The next mistake I made was correcting my mistake on how I cited the quote.  The rest of the paragraph I change drastically.  I changed it so much was because one it did not refer to my topic sentence, two some of the sentences were confusing, and three the tenses did not match up.