Angle of Vision

            Angle of vision, in my words, is stating facts, statistics, or information in a way that betters your story or argument for a particular audience. As the book states, how you tell your friends and grandparents what you did this weekend is going to differ, and possibly quite significantly.  It depends on the message you want your audience to get, in this case you tell your friend how crazy this party was, and you tell your grandparents you just hung out with a few friends, to keep your perfect grandchild image.   Many people have been doing this their whole life, including me, but it almost comes as second nature.  It is something do so often and don't even think about.  No matter whom we are telling a story to or talking to we tell them what we think they want to hear or need to know.

            Now, to question angle of vision.  It happens so often in social situations that it goes unnoticed.  But, when it comes to writing academic papers I don’t think it is the best approach to be taken.  When you are writing a persuasive paper, of course you are going to want to say what makes your argument sound better. That’s the point of a persuasive paper, to challenge and even change the readers mind on a particular topic.  But, if you are writing a scholarly paper or in a scholarly journal I think to be more credible you would want to show both sides.  In a class I had last semester, we spent a couple weeks on analyzing scholarly articles.  Many of these articles were on controversial topics, but many were biased which hurt their credibility.  If you are trying to get a person to make a decision, shouldn’t they be presented with all the facts?  Once you’ve been taught how to analyze articles, you begin to notice bias or “angle of vision” more readily and in the end it can hurt the authors credibility.   

Privatizing Executions?

Arthur Miller, " Get it Right: Privatize Executions"

Believe:

If executions were to become privatized, there would be an immense turnout of people to witness the execution.  The revenue brought in from the audience buying tickets could go towards many things. The money should be split two ways, part should go back to the prison and the other part should go to the victim’s family as some attempt at reparation.  It is very expensive to house criminals in jail for long periods of time while they are either on trial or waiting for “their day.”  I know money is not the way to fix everything, and can most definitely not fix the loss of a loved one.  But, some compensation for their loss can and will help the family, and if they choose they do not want to money the family can choose what the money goes towards.  Also, with the privatization there will be a message sent out to many people.  People being able to witness the punishment being upheld will show that you most likely will not get away with a crime you commit and you will have to face the consequences of your actions. 

Doubt:

            I do not believe the public execution of criminals is a necessity.  The possible “benefits” of doing so do not out weigh the consequences.  Often, when a murder suspect is put on trial their lives are made public.  Their name gets put into newspapers, their picture is shown on the five o’clock news, and if they are found guilty of their crime it is made well known.  Yes, it is nice to know that our law enforcement is doing their job and catching the criminals, but I believe this is enough humiliation for one person.  Then we deal with, it is not only humility of one person but also of their family.  From now on, their name will be associated with the crime a family member committed.  Why then must we go further as to let everyone watch him or her die?   It is not going to be a great feeling for a family member to walk down the street and overhear people talking about tickets to an execution they just bought and they know its going to be the one of their family members.   Or, imagine walking into a store or room and having people turn to who ever they are with and start talking about you.  The first assumption the family member is going to make is that these people saw the execution of your relative and now everywhere you go people are going to remember the execution, because they relate it to you, and talk about it.  Now, the family no matter how hard they are trying to forget about it is always going to have a constant reminder of what happened.

Also, in no way could children witnessing an execution teach them a lesson.  If you were to take a child to a public execution and they ask, “What is going on mommy,” the likely response of the mother is going to be something along the lines of he was a bad person and now he is getting punished.  This is okay until you are trying to teach your children right from wrong and you tell them something as simple as lying or stealing is what bad people do.  Then, with how wild young children’s minds run, they are going to think if they steal or lie what they saw at the execution is going to happen to them.  So, when they accidently tell a lie they could overreact completely and get really scared which could lead to worse problems.

"I Just Ate What?!"

In the January 15, 2009 issue of The Breeze, the article entitled “I Just Ate What?!” had an intriguing thesis that showed the true healthiness of foods many people eat. The thesis of the article was to make the reader think about what they are really eating which could possibly affect what they order next time they go out to eat.  It is a strong thesis because it accomplishes many characteristics of a strong thesis according to The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing and keeps the reader entertained throughout the article.

According to The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing, a strong thesis introduces something new to the reader, surprises the reader, and is supported by specific examples.   In the article, the author asked many students, who cared about their eating habits, what they like to eat.  Many responded with dishes they thought were healthy but to their amazement were not so good for them after all.  The information presented was shocking to both the people mentioned in the article and me as the reader.  Something as simple as a Chicken Caesar salad and a French baguette from Panera Bread, which many people believe to be quite healthy, can add up to 820 calories. Or who would have known that the Japanese Pan Noodles from ElBows in Festival could take up almost all of an average days 2,000-calorie diet at an astounding 1,510 calories.  The more the author began to reveal the number of calories and/or grams of fat in items ordered commonly amongst people, like a Mocha Frappuccino from Starbucks or the You-Pick-Two at Panera, the more it kept me interested and reading.  The author was able to get my mind thinking about what I order and eat on a daily basis and put the question that will linger in my mind of really how healthy is the meal I am eating right now.