Taylor's Blog

The relation between Steinmetz and Burkhardt’s articles to Clive Thompson’s is tricky to pick out because they seem so different when first reading them. I think that they are related by the fact that they all want readers to be aware that they are reading fake news regardless of how they get to that point of realization. Steinmetz shows this when she says “Having a well-informed citizenry may be, in the big picture, as important to survival as having clean air and water.” Burkhardt leads me to believe this when she says ” Many people share fake news without ever having read the content of the article. Sharing of fake news, whether because it is amusing or because people think it is real, only exaggerates the problem.” Lastly, Thompson gives the sense of this throughout his whole article. He starts the article out by giving a whole background on where media originated from and the first papers. Thompson points out that news today has become more partisan, which isn’t a bad thing. I think using Thompson’s article in my essay will not only round out my essay but strengthen it too. It could help strengthen and round my essay because his viewpoint is so different yet has the same outcome that the other two do. Having an argument brought up that differs vastly from what has already been introduced makes for a better essay.

The way I think about fake news now has not changed a lot. I never really cared too much about the topic and therefore did not have an opinion on it. Although that seems like a bad thing, it is easier for me to evaluate both ends of the arguments these two articles make. After reading Katy Steinmetz’s article “The Real Fake News Crisis” I realized that some people do actually have strong standpoints on this topic. I do like how she wants people to know how true their sources are though. In everyday life, if I’m on Facebook or something and I see someone talking about anything related to astronomy and how “mars has water”I get frustrated because I know that it doesn’t and never will because of the atmosphere and surface rock oxidization. If people would check their sources, they would find that most things are not true and I agree with Steinmetz that we should be aware of the actuality of what we read. Although Burkhardt shares little of the same ideas, I do trust that some of the problem is placed on social media sites and what they are or rather are not doing. Overall, my opinions on fake news haven’t really changed because I don’t spend too much time reading about news or social media so fake news doesn’t affect me that much. Although I am not ignorant on the subject, or what is happening around me, I just choose to worry about myself and I think there are bigger problems in life to get worked up about rather than some untrue news.

Major Research Paper Topics

The first topic I chose is medicinal anomalies. A new movie on Netflix called “Brain on Fire” came out recently and I was interested in it so of course, I watched it. In short, the movie is about this happy girl who has a job she loves and a supportive family. This girl begins questioning her happiness and starts having seizures. Doctors cannot figure out what is wrong and soon the girl cannot walk, talk, or perform other basic tasks. After a while of all good readings on blood work and testing for every disease which wasn’t present, the doctors found that half of her brain was inflamed. This topic was intriguing because the discovery of this one anomaly ended up being something easily treatable and saved many lives. If this one story is so interesting, I can only imagine what else there is out there. I haven’t taken it upon myself to look into these cases so I do not know much about them. My topic question might be something around the idea of “Should we be funding medical anomaly research?”

My second topic is insane asylums. I am intrigued by this topic because I find it amazing how the vast majority of people in today’s society would be considered mentally ill, or crazy, back when insane asylums were at large. I don’t know too much about this topic except that there was mistreatment to inpatients and they did not live in too healthy of conditions. I think because it is a weird topic, it would make for good research and possibly enlightenment to readers.

Lastly, my third topic is holocaust experimentation done on people in concentration camps. This topic is literally so hard to wrap your head around and what I know about it is the reason I am so intrigued by it. From my knowledge, German physicians did crazy experiments on thousands of prisoners that usually ended up in death. The most deranged thing of all was the fact that the United States literally gave the physicians an option. They could either keep the research and receive reprimand or they could hand the research over and the U.S. would fully let them go! I would love to research into this because I genuinely am curious what else went on.

Freewriting

As I am reading “The Real Fake News Crisis” I keep thinking about how reliable the authors sources. She keeps making the reader feel like fake news is a huge ordeal and is 99% of what we read online, which may be, but how does she know the difference between real and fake news herself? If fake news is so huge, how does she know that the information she gathers for her article is not fake itself? Also, how do we know that we as readers can trust this author and believe that what she states isn’t fake news? something that really stuck with me was the realization of how easy it is to put fake news out for a large audience. Everyone I know has Facebook including my mom, my dad, even my grandma. social media is universal, especially Facebook which caters to all ages. This leads me to think about the age disagreements in our society and what it could mean for fake news. If a “millennial” reads an article and brings up the topic to a member of an older generation, he or she is already predisposed to argue their position. Unfortunately for the fighting pair, that arguments outcome doesn’t matter because what does is now that an argument made people talk about the fake news and the article states,”If you’ve seen something before, ‘your brain subconsciously uses that as an indication that it’s true.’” One of the authors main ideas was to shame people who share or feed into fake news. at the moment, I am not sure what position to take on this idea. I agree that it could be useful in getting people thinking, but can also just lead to arguments which feed into the problem. Before I can make up my mind on this situation, I would want to know how much actual fake news is out there or seen, and how big of a “crisis” it actually is.

Student Sample Analysis

After reading Kafka’s paper I realized that she had a tough time acknowledging the opposing side of some of her claims. I believe that this is a key point in an essay because it makes your argument stronger. For example, when Kafka states that trash is ” trucked to landfills, dumped into the oceans, or just left to roll along our sidewalks, streets, and dirt roads” she forgets to also mention that the vast majority of people do recycle. It is easy to point something like this out when you are just a spectator towards an essay. I know because I make this mistake unknowingly when I write as well. This is something I hope to improve on in English 102. Another aspect of Kafka’s final essay that I relate with includes being able to tell a story well and get the point across. I am not just talking about the point you are trying to make, but overall what your paper is about and items you will touch on. On the contrary, from reading Smolka’s paper, I realized how well an essay can flow which is something I would like to learn myself. In my writing, I can be thoroughly informative and also provide enough background knowledge to allow the reader minimal question what I am talking about. Although having an informed reader is good, sometimes my paper can become choppy and not fit well together making my essay sound scrappy and be hard to read. I know that my skills will improve not just by taking this course but also because of the help of my peers, and I look forward to it.

Where do you like to surf the internet?

I do not surf the internet too much because I believe media is good at making us lose faith in mankind. Most situations are portrayed negatively and I do not put time and effort feeding into that. The most internet surfing I do is looking at the weather usually given by channel 9 news. For me, they are considered credible because they are local, but I only do trust what they say about local places. For example, if you are looking at locations to eat and need recommendations, most would rather ask someone who went to the restaurant they are considering over a person who has not been. Other than the weather, sometimes I find something interesting on Facebook, but I definitely look into the subject on multiple well-known sites. Although, mainly, you can find me on iFunny catching up on the latest memes.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton