Julius Caesar

In Antony's speech, he uses pathos to gain sympathy from his audience. He points out how honorable of a man Caesar was and convinces the audience that he did not deserve to be assassinated. He also uses ethos to show how wrong it was for Brutus to be apart of the murder. Since Brutus and Caesar were best friends, it does not make moral sense for Brutus to be one of the murderers.

Brutus, however, uses logos against Caesar and for himself as a way to explain why he helped to murder Caesar. He tries to convince the audience that he did it for him and not for himself; he forces them to believe that killing Caesar was the best thing for the whole of Rome and that he was benefiting them by killing him off.

What I Expect Out of the Class (Eng 103 Lab)

This semester in my English 103 Class, I expect to be able to organize my papers better, to become a more persuasive writer and to have a better understanding of more difficult text and literature. 

Throughout my high school career my teachers have always expressed to me that I have the potential to become a very good writer. One of the main obstacles that are in the way of me reaching my goal is my disorganization when writing. I tend to jump around from idea to idea, which causes me to confuse myself as well as my reader. If I could organize my ideas better, I know my readers will have a better grasp of what I am talking about.

Also, I would like to focus on getting my opinions across better in my literature. I need to learn how to make strong points and provide evidence to appropriately support them. In doing so, I will become better at writing how I feel and give my readers a better understanding of who I am as an individual.

Lastly, I would like to get a better understanding of what I am reading when faced with challenging and complicated books. As of right now, when the language is difficult to read or the words are strung together in ways different from what I am used to, I have a hard time staying focused and understanding what I had previously written.

From my English 103 class, I expect to be able to organize my ideas better and create more persuasive arguments to become a better writer and read for better understanding to become a better reader. All of these ideas are essential to the the idea of literature, and I look forward to bettering myself in this class.

Eats, Shoots, & Leaves

I agree with Truss's view of punctuation in this excerpt of Eats, Shoots, & Leaves.  Punctuation is very important to the comprehension of language around the world. Without it, written documents would be just a jumble of words with multiple interpretations, which would completely defeat its purpose: to inform and gain understanding.  One thing I do not agree with Truss about, however, is her assertion of the importance of punctuation in text messaging. It reads:

Meanwhile, in the world of text messages, ignorance of grammar and punctuation obviously doesn't affect a person's ability to communicate messages such as "C U later." But if you try anything longer, it always seems to turn out much like the writing of the infant Pip in Great Expectations.

In my opinion, the shorthand that is used in text messages does not equal ignorance, but rather a strong and useful understanding of the English language. Text messages are designed to be a convenient and fast means of telecommunication, so to clutter it with periods, commas and capitalizations, which can be easily overlooked, would take away from its main job: simplicity.

Language: The Power We Love to Hate

Lakoff, Robin. "Language: The Power We Love to Hate" (pp. 17-31) from The Language War. (US Press, Berkeley, 2000).

"The common thread in the explanatory narratives spun by the mralists and experts is a belief in the intellectual deficits of a populace in veigled into an addiction to trivia. The real stories, it is said or implied, the ones a serious and intelligent public would be paying attention to, are complex. We decadent Americans are drawn to these narratives by their very simplicity --- all we postmodern consumers can understand.

According to Lakoff, the interest of American people in the lives and controversy of trivial celebrities stems from our inability to understand the more important controversies effecting the world around us. It is not that we are uninterested in the more complex; it is simply that we are too lazy to gain understanding of it. This quote is important in proving the author's point because it supports the idea that Americans are most interested in the lives of other Americans because, although it may be less significant, it is indirectly about us.