Reading Response #1

"They Say"

Exercise 1

a. Some people still believe that our groundwater is safe to drink. In fact, however our experiments suggest that there are dangerous levels of chemical X in the Ohio groundwater.

b. You would think that material forces such as, money, technology and engineering drive the future, but it is material forces that drive history.

c. A standard way of doing things is based on the common sense of people. In contrast, proponents of Freudian psychology question these standard notions of "rationality."

d. It is a common belief that women talk more than men, but it has been shown that male students often dominate class discussions.

e. Women seem to always believe that having a boyfriend solves everything, which isn't always true. This film is about the problems of romantic relationships.

f. It has become common today to use templates to make writing easier, but I am afraid that using templates like the ones in this book will stifle my creativity.

Exercise 2

If ever there was an idea custom-made for a Jay Leno monologue, this was it: straight people supporting gay marriages. Isn't that like vegetarians supporting people who eat meat? Whatever happen to making up your mind and choosing one side?

I happen to sympathize with these flip-flopping critics, though. Maybe that's because I am also one of them.

Screen Shot

My difficult composing task was typing my chemistry lab report. As a requirement, the whole report had to be typed. This included all data sheets and graphs. It was hard to figure out how to organize the report and type out all my writtten observations. As I looked at my screen shot, I couldn't believe I created this. I saw a well written report. All my papers and notes were all together and made sense to the reader. Even though it took me a long time to figure out how to compose my report, once I was finished I felt satisfied and proud of what I accomplished.

Composing this on the computer allowed me to create a well organized, detailed report. Compared to my written report, the one I created in digital space was cleaner and sharper looking. All the lines were neat and the words could be read clearly. If mistakes were made I could easily fix the error without great effort. I could go back whenever I wanted and make any changes to the report. In digital space, I could record my observations in a table that the program set up for me and bold words that were more important than others. In digital space, It is alot easier to format a paper.

To better understand digital composing processses you must try them out. First you have to explore the program. There are so many possibilities to format a paper you just have to figure them out. There are even classes you can take to help you learn how to use it. One thing you can do is even look up information on the internet. I did exactly that when figuring out how to do the screen shot. I googled it. It is a great resource. It is to your advantage in this day in age to fully understand digital composing.