ch 48

Chapter 48 of Rules For Writers is based on evaluating arguments. Generalizing is something both writers and thinkers do constantly. For example: "After numerous bad experiences with an airline, we decide to book future flights with a competitor." From an order of facts, we put together conclusions. Conclusions must be sufficient, representative, and relevant to be highly portable. An effective means of arguing a point are analogies. A false analogy is when an analogy is clearly off base. For example: "If we put humans on the moon, we should be able to find a cure for the common cold." Writers are known to oversimplify cause-and-effect because it is so complex. Arguments are sometimes based on assumptions, because writers can't always prove the conceivable claims the argument is based on.
I will use what I have learned and read in this chapter in my future writing assignments. I'll make sure to not just discuss my views of something, but others views points too and to make reasonable argumentative evaluations on whats being written.

Essay 2 Dialogue

I have a kinda similar relationship with my father, the same way Sarah Vowell and her father do. In the story "Shooting Dad," Sarah and her father don't share hardly anything in common. They usually disagree on most things and have separate opinions, the only one thing they agree on is the constitution. Sarah doesn't seem to understand her fathers passion for guns. I am the same way with my father though. For me things didn't start off right away. When I was younger I would always do everything with my father. We would go hiking and go to different rivers for him to look for arrowheads, which is like Sarah's fathers gun to him. I was always really into doing it, I thought of it as spending time with my father. It was around the time that my brother was born that we stopped going on the hikes and going to the rivers. I don't know what it was, I think it was the fact that I was getting older and growing out of my tom boy phase. Around that time my father got really into politics, he would always try to talk to me about them or try to make me watch the news, and of course I never paid attention. To me it was a waste of time, but to my father it's like the most important thing. He always says to me, "Don't you wanna know what's going on in the world."

Shooting Dad

In this story the author grows up with a father that does not agree on the same things as she does. One is a democrat and the other a republican, the only thing they agree on is the constitution. I believe the significance of the title, "Shooting Dad" comes from the author's view points of her father. He is a man who loves to shoot and has a passion for guns. As a young girl, the father took the author and her twin sister outside to shoot a gun for their first time at the age of six. The author didn't like the feeling, she had to close her eyes when she shot it. She said she felt like the gun was taking over and that she never even pulled the trigger. Even though the author never liked or understood her father's passion for guns, she decided to go watch him shoot a cannon that he had made a replica of. That is when she realized that she was somewhat like her father. She said, "My dad and I are the same person. We're both smart-alecky loners with goofy projects and weird equipment."

"Coming Home Again"

Why does his mother regret allowing him to attend boarding school?

In the story "Coming Home Again" by Chang-rae Lee, his mother thought it would be best for him to attend boarding school at the age of fifteen. He had spent four years away from home, but it resulted in him getting a good high school education. During the end of the story the mother mentions that her sending him to Exeter had been a big mistake, she realized that he should of been spending time with his family for all those years. When he asked her why she sent him, her response was, "because I didn't know I was going to die." She probably regretted that she lost the four years with her son and him growing up with her not around, but her getting sicker and sicker each day didn't make things any better. He had ignored what she had said. His mother wasn't big for speaking her mind, but in that point she was finally doing it. But then she believed sending him to Exeter was probably the best for him. She believed that if he had never gone to boarding school and had stayed home that he wouldn't like her as much, but he intended that he would of probably liked her more.

Chapter 46.

This chapter focuses on academic writing. There are two steps that will help you move ahead, they are 1.) annotating the text and 2.) outlining the key points of the text. Annotating is a simple technique, to which you write any questions or thoughts you may have in the margins of the text, or simply underline words that seem important. After you annotate a text, you should attempt to outline the text. You should focus mainly on the texts thesis and topic sentences, which you should write in your own words. When you summarize the text to demonstrate your understanding you should look for the texts thesis, then break it down into either a few major or minor details. Turning a text into your own argument is known as analyzing. Analyzing will be something you may be asked to do a lot in college writing.


This chapter can be very helpful, but I think it would have been better placed during the first few chapters in Rules for Writers. I never did any annotation in my English classes until last year. Annotating and outlining helps you understand the text more clearer in your own way. This is a technique I will take advantage of.

The image above is of my friend Erin Brookman, who has passed away.

Erin Colleen Brookman, 9/3/1993-9/2/2007. Erin was one of my best friends and had a huge impact on my life, as well as others. Her death changed my life drastically and taught me never to take life for granted. Although i had only been friends with her for a couple years, she had one of the strongest influences on me.
It was my friend Melissa's birthday party in December of 2005, when I first met Erin. I felt like I knew her before I even met her, because I would hear so many stories of her from my friends. It didn't take long for us to start calling each other best friends. She had been such a great friend to everyone and probably one of the most kindhearted people you would ever meet. The fact that she always was putting her friends problems before hers was the main reason that made her such a kindhearted person. At one time in our friendship I had been struggling with a bunch of different things, without her support I probably wouldn't of been able to get through it all.
In October of 2006 Erin, her sister, and her mother had to move to Napa, because of many problems they were going through. After the move, nothing was really the same. I went from seeing her every few days to seeing her only a couple times a month. At first it was hard, but it soon got easier. Even if we weren't hanging out all the time, we still were talking to each other mostly everyday.
During Labor Day weekend of 2007, my family and I were camping at Lake Berryessa. It was the weekend of Erins 14th birthday. I had talked to her earlier in the week and she mentioned going with a few of her Napa friends to a lake, but she didn't mention what exact lake it was. I didn't realize she had gone to the same lake I had been at, until I had already been home for a night. Erin had passed away on September 2nd, 2007, the day shy of her 14th birthday. When her family and her friends were at the lake they were hanging out in their boat under a bridge where a lot of families park their boats to hangout and swim. No one knew, but the boats were realising out a lot of carbon dioxide, which caused Erins friend to start seizing and throw up in the water while they were all swimming. Of course the first thing you think to do, is to help out the person who needs it, and that is what everyone was doing. Her mom soon realized after the ambulance had came that she hadn't seen Erin around for quite some time. They were all worried about what could of happened to her and decided to call a search and rescue team to help them out. Unfortunately they had no luck finding her, until the morning of her birthday. It was September 3rd, when a man found her body washed up on shore. Erin had gone through the same thing her friend went through. She also inhaled a bunch of carbon dioxide, but know one had noticed because they were all paying attention and trying to help out her friend. That morning still haunts me, because I remember seeing and hearing the ambulance and not knowing they had been for my best friend.
Losing someone that is very close to you is such a terrible feeling in life and something no one deserves to go through. Getting through the lost of one of my best friends wasn't easy at all. It actually brought me and a few of my friends closer together, because we felt like no one else understood the pain we were going through at the time. I never go a day without thinking about her and what she would be like if she was still here today. There are still times when I will be thinking about her and just start crying. I am so thankful for having a chance to know such an amazing girl. The days we spent together will always be the greatest memories of my life.

chapter 4 con't.

chapter 4 is going to be very helpful to me in the future when I am struggling on my writing. There are many different structures on writing I had no idea about. I always have a hard time when writing an essay. I never know what should go where, but from reading this chapter I learned the main points of when a new paragraph should be started. This information is going to be very useful and I am going to make sure to refer back to this chapter when I need help.