Ian's Blog

     This class is coming to an end soon, and with that comes the opportunity to reflect on what I have learned and how I will apply it to my future writing.      I believe that the most important thing I learned (or rather, learned more about) in this class is the importance of rhetoric in writing. The bare argument in writing is obviously important, but it’s not just the argument that gets someone to read something—it’s the choice of words you employ, the structure you build with those words, and the verifiable validity of them that keeps the reader wanting to turn the page. One could even say it is the rhetoric that a writer uses that most strengthens their argument over anything else.       If I had to choose the least important thing I learned in the class, it would probably be how to use Gemini, because even though it was cool being able to use AI to help me write, I’ll most likely use it very rarely after this class ends. Even so,...

    Writing in high school and writing in college are indeed cut from the same cloth, but the creases and folds of each are way different. For starters, writing in high school's core is built upon many unhealthy stigmas for the art of writing as a whole. This isn't to say college writing doesn't also have its own odd quirks, but most students can say that the hardest part of college writing is destroying those same habits burned into their brains in high school--a specific example being the condemnation of first person in high school academic writing.       The average highschooler is taught to avoid first person while writing academically to keep a sense of objectivity and formality, which is no doubt important in college writing as well. But this method of "I-less prose" doesn't leave any room for the writer to employ any type of nuance in their work, which, depending on the class, the assignment, and the context behind it, is much more important in life ...

    The subject of history has a valid argument for being the absolute most important subject you can not only learn at an early age but expand knowledge upon later in life--specifically, a major in college. It takes the average person some time to realize that the life they live now is a result of everyone else's life which was lived before them, good or bad. Now, of course most know this and brand it as common sense, but they've never thought about the implications behind it--all history, really is just the application of all lives and events that happened before now to now. So, of course it's important and of course it should be expanded upon, right?      Yet, even with the complete catalogue of observable history being available to us, some view the teaching of it as a bad thing.  Why is this so? In order to prove these people wrong, we must find out, then logically decide why it is wrong at all. Most people with this anti-history viewpoint often use it...