Final Essay Rough Draft

Stephen Guelda
ENGL 105
Mr. Leake
23 November 2009
Multiple Lives of the Swine Flu
The swine flu has been talked about for months upon months ever since it first started appearing in the United States. There have been more infections and deaths as time has drawn on. It has been in the paper and news for probably about as long as Michael Jackson was when he died. There have been stories ranging from how many people have been infected to the vaccine and then stories about those stories and responding to everything those say. This story has been of interest to people ever since the H1N1 started showing up because it deals with people’s health and safety. It has been developing for months upon months as scientists and researchers have studied more and researchers have been producing vaccines for the swine flu.
The swine flu was discovered and classified as a new strain of flu in April 2009. People started to worry about how it would affect them and the news of course covered it. Many sites urged precaution and caused some panic because people did not know how bad the new virus would be. There had been few studies and not that many people were sick, so they did not necessarily have much of a clue of how it would affect everyone. Some people were saying it would be as bad as the flu pandemic in 1918-1919 which killed somewhere around fifty million people worldwide. So even though no one really had any solid proof of what this strain was capable of people started coming up with their own ideals and debating about how much it would affect everyone.
After the first cases started showing up throughout the United States, it started to get national attention. It had been active in countries such as Mexico for a while before it ever came to the United States, and the government had no desire of the same thing occurring. The government started focusing on preventing the spread of the disease and the procurement of a vaccine that would be able to be produced and distributed quickly. President Obama suggested a plan that would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to help research the H1N1 strain, develop a vaccine, and prevent the spread of it through out the United States. People started to realize that this could be a very serious threat to people, and as most normal people would do, they started to question what type of preparation was being done to stem off this virus that could be potentially lethal. Some people panicked and worried that it was going to be a pandemic and tons of people would die. On the other hand many people thought everyone was overreacting and that it would be no worse than even the seasonal flu. Studies started being conducted to determine some of these things, but nothing really definitive had come out yet. Stories continued to come about the swine flu and different people’s reactions to it.
As the virus started becoming more prevalent in a majority of the states in the United States, people really started worrying. People were even starting to die, and many people were starting to panic. People did not see many things going on to help stop this from becoming a pandemic. People wanted answers and started commenting on how they thought the government was doing in preparing for the swine flu. Everyone from blogs to newspapers covered the story, and it even became a topic that many people discussed among their peers. People demanded that vaccine be made and the government came up with an estimate that around a hundred million doses would be ready by mid-October.
As the situation currently stands the vaccine has started being administered across the country, but not nearly as much as the government proposed would be ready. Drive thru clinics with the limited supply of the swine flu shot were set up with the one that happened at the University of Louisville’s Stadium being a prime example. Also people were being administered a nasal spray swine flu vaccine. This by itself became a totally different story as people questioned this new vaccine. The nasal spray vaccine is an active virus, and people started saying that this was going to spread the disease more than stop the spread of it. The government had to defend itself and this turned into stories and counter stories over this new vaccine. All this was happening while people were arguing over methods to speed up the regular vaccine production. The whole process was under heavy scrutiny by many people for not meeting the expectations that they said they would complete.
Even now this story has not ended. There is no telling where this story will go in the time ahead. Even the most prominent newspaper, The New York Times, has an overview of the swine flu overtime and a swine flu navigator. The swine flu is still popping up all around the world and for the most part has spread to every state in the United States. There have been over one thousand deaths and tens of thousands of infections in the United States attributed to the swine flu alone and this number is only going to increase as time goes on. People have been saying that the swine flu has been through the first wave, and many people are expecting a second wave when winter hits. All of these speculations lead to more stories, and whether or not a second wave of the H1N1 flu hits will determine whether or not this story will live on and there will be even more stories. This story will live on through the upcoming months as the flu season draws closer and depending on how widespread the consequences are it may even live on in history.


Works Cited
"Swine Flu (H1N1)." The New York Times. 11 Nov. 2009. Web. 23 Nov. 2009.

Taking an Approach...a little bit late

This chapter is definitely one of the most challenging in the book so far. Forwarding and Countering were simple concepts compared to this chapter. However, the more complex something is usually means it has much more applications than something that may be constrained or constricted. I believe this applies to Taking an Approach. The applications of taking an approach can be applied to anything, not only writing texts. As we talked about in class, even businesses and movie producers and other things use this to improve things or sell more item. Some of the things Harris discusses in this chapter are "Acknowledging Influences," "Turning an Approach on Itself," and "Reflexivity."

I think every piece "Takes an Approach" even if they do not try to. Every author has their own style that they tend to use even if they realize it or not. I think you could link this to your personality a little bit as well. Writing is just a way you express yourself using written words. There are so many different ways to express yourself and each way has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, Hedge's writing style was very bold and harsh. This can get a point across to people fiercely, but it can also turn people away quite easily. Whereas if you take a milder approach you might not inspire people with as much emotion, but you might have more people agree with you. So when you try to examine what you lose or gain by taking an approach it can be difficult because there are so many variables. Ultimately, it depends on how you take your approach that determines what is lost or gained. Without an approach you do not have anything.

Making my Blog Better

Hedge's once again comes out fighting in his article as he tries to explain how democracy is failing and that news is being turned into entertainment by corporations. He starts out by saying how the journalism industry is failing, and he states the facts that the stocks of many newspapers are falling. He does have links this time, but Hedges does not put the links to these facts unfortunately. What is the point? I don't know either. I agree that the newspapers stock prices were falling and could also see where it could be interpreted that newspaper companies were failing, but I would like to think that these facts may not have been taken in context. During that time not only newspaper companies were struggling with low profits, but also many other companies were struggling as well. This article was written around the time the economic recession started, and I believe after the article was written it was more noticeable that everything was going downhill. They may have been one of the first ones to get hit, but many stocks dropped as everyone well knows. Hedges believes that no one cares about the real facts anymore and says that the internet along with massive corporations are slowly destroying traditional media such as newspapers. Once again Hedges sounds like someone who is a little too afraid of change.

Now on to the second piece. Clive Thompson has a radically different opinion compared to Hedges. Thompson somehow believes that the internet is actually making us more literate. Hedges might blow a gasket if he saw this one. He uses scientific studies from Stanford university to go against the numerous amount of people who think that our new internet habits are destroying are reading and writing habits. The study shows that in the world today people are writing extensively outside of school and job related writing. We are definitely a different generation and will have some differences, but Thompson and Lunsford(the person who conducted Stanford's study) believe that it will benefit us in the long run. Thompson's article is much less assertive than Hedge's and makes you feel like if you do not agree with his view you still might live. People are afraid of the unknown. Yes the writing and reading habits of our new generations are changing, but it does not necessarily have to be for the worse. We are sailing uncharted waters and may come up with new discoveries comparable to the discovering of the Americas. Just think of all the people that were criticized for challenging current ideas, and then look at where we are today because of them. This new age may be the same way.

Pretty much the only thing I changed was the wording of my opinions to make them more compatible with the process of "countering" and "forwarding." I just used some of the "Yes, but.." and "Yes, and.." phrases to maybe make my argument better. Mainly i focused on countering in my article because it deals with two opposing views. I probably could have worked a little more on the non-critical aspect though.

Countering

Harris' description of countering is similar to his definition of forwarding. I believe they achieve the same purpose, but they use almost opposite techniques to achieve their goals. The purpose of countering is to advance arguments and your own ideas by using other people's pieces of works. Instead of looking at terms and ideas that are explained well that could be used for your advantage, you look at terms and ideas that could be explained more thoroughly and in a way debate against those and use those for your own means. One point that Harris emphasizes is important for countering is to make sure you are not just putting down other writers. There is not as much point to just proving people wrong and showing people that they are wrong. By delving deeper into the issue and looking at why it is flawed and looking at alternatives, you can begin to make new conclusions that might be useful. Plus bashing other readers tends to make people a lot of enemies and not respect your ideals even if they are insightful. I think a prime example is Chris Hedges.

There is an article about the Fort Hood Shooting that uses countering fairly well. The initial thoughts were that the man accused of the shootings was a terrorist carrying out the mission of a suicide bomber. However, in the article, it explains how that may be true, but it offers evidence that proves that may not be the reason and why they think so. They leave the possibility open for the original verdict, but propose an alternative that may be true. Countering is an effective tool that writers can use for making their paper better. So long as you do not focus too much on the other paper as your own.

Harris' Forwarding

What is the first thing most people think of when they think of forwarding?? I do not really know for sure, but I would guess it would be the email feature where you can send an exact copy of emails and such to other people you know. Harris completely goes off this model and describes in detail the entire process of what he believes is forwarding. He defines forwarding as having four distinct processes through which you can accomplish forwarding. The four processes are Illustrating, Authorizing, Borrowing,and Extending. Pretty much "forwarding" as explained by Harris includes taking ideas, opinions, passages, phrases, etc. from a work and using it to develop your own ideals or to expand on them. I would explain more, but I have a feeling that might be a waste of my time considering that everyone has already read it and probably has a idea about all of it.

Depending on what type of forwarding you choose to apply to your work will decide what is altered, changed, lost, or stays the same. If you "illustrate", pretty much everything stays the same. It just furthers your argument a little bit more and may give it more backing or authority. If you borrow or authorize something you are working with, you may alter the original concepts that the author conveys in his work. Regardless of what type of forwarding you use, any forwarding should make your argument or opinion stronger. The main things that are lost or altered are the original authors ideals and opinions.

One example of forwarding occurs in an article in the Daily Dish. It is describing how Republicans are pushing away all the moderates and has many forms of forwarding. First off there is a picture at the very start of the article providing evidence to the argument. Then in the actual article it has a quote from a Senator where they are using his ideal for their article. Then one example of forwarding that pretty much every author who writes on the internet nowadays is the hyperlink. This allows authors to not only cite info from people, but also it allows them to go back and get their own interpretation on the info that is given. Forwarding is a process used by many; you just have to find it.