Dear future English 110 student,

I don't know what it is abot my writing that people like, but I must have been doing something correctly for these past few years. However, whenever I write, I make sure that I have a point on which I focus the writing. Whether it was comparing aspects of George Orwell's 1984 to contemporary America in my Junior year research paper, or determining the purpose of a Tom Hardy poem my sophmore year, there has always been a clearly defined point to my writing. I also make sure that I choose a topic rich in information and potential. For this class specifically, I chose a primary source that I knew would have plenty of research surrounding it, one that many people would know. I chose a Frosted Flakes commercial as my primary source because they have been producing commercials for a long time. Many people would understand the message and be able to understand my writing because they are familiar with the source. On top of that, I knew I would be find research supporting any well thought out argument I could make because advertising is such a carefully formulated topic. There would be a copia of research and literature on the topic of advertising, especially towards the intended audience of children. Be careful in the beginning of the course as this is when you set up the rest of your writing for the quarter, based on the primary source you choose. You have to use good judgment and foresight to pick a good source that will be able to give seven pages of rich writing. Good luck this quarter, and don't be afraid to ask for help if you need it!

The first source I looked at was about meal portions in Paris vs meal portions in Philadelphia. the study showed that meal portions in Philadelphia was about 25% larger than meal portions in Paris. Because of similar diets of fatty foods, this factor alone contributes to Americans' larger belt sizes than those of the French. There are 4 comments on this and they are all generally the same. They all supported the idea presented in the primary source, and some added additional resources to readers to follow up on their diet research. Another response gave tips to eating better.

The next source I looked at was about military workouts. It turns out that many people are more efficient at working out when they have some one yelling at them during their workout. The primary source gives different places to get one of these military workouts around the country. However, some of the responces disagree with using boot camp to lose weight and get in shape. One blogger cites the fact that many people just lack the time to go to boot camp because of a job and/or a family. On top of that, some people just aren't cut out for boot camp, and drop out after a week or two. Another blogger states that teen boot camps are great for building character in developing adults, and that going to boot camp as a teen will significantly augment a teen's health and self esteem. Each blogger had a good point, and the primary source did a great job of selling this specific method of exercise.

You can find both blogs on http://liftnews.squarespace.com/

Even though my ARP will be about advertising exercise to children and their parents, and directed towards an academic audience, there still must be dialouge opened to children and parents. I found two sources, one of which is an article suggesting adults get out and play, and the other is a website run by the CDC promoting exercise towards tweens.
The first source is a short article from Reuters.com describing the benefits of activities such as dancing, rock climbing and hula hooping. The article breaks things down so that its easy to comprehend by using simple sentences and basic facts to portray these benefits. It uses very simple words to get its message across. The first sentence is a rhetorical question, and there are several sentence fragments used as a means to keep the tone light and almost like a spoken conversation, rather than full sentences and complex ideas.
The second source is a complete website devoted to informing its audience of healthy activity called VERB. This idea was created by the Center for Disease Control in an attempt to get tweensThe creators of the website actually went deeper into writing for a specific audience by making separate articles for kids and adults. For the kids, the website has several ideas to get started and ways to get involved with the community. For the adults, there are magazines, handouts, and guides designed for parents and teachers with information on how to get their children or students involved and show support. The text on this website assumes its audience to be more educated than my other source, but still uses a simpler format, such as bullet points and short thoughts rather than full sentences. The website's goal is to communicate its ideas to its audience, and the most efficient way to do so would be to keep things simple for the audience to easily comprehend.
Both sources spell out a message to their audience using simple means. However, even when sending a message to a general audience, it is still possible to break it down based on things such as age, gender, or religion. The target audience is a very important thing to keep in mind when writing, especiall when the writer is attempting to make an impact. The audience must first understand everything before it can act.

My paper is about commercials trying to promote exercise to children. This picture demonstrates that children will watch ads for fast food and similar unhealthy choices, and may end up looking like the monkey in this picture. If kids see other people eating a lot of fast food, they themselves will eat a lot of fast food.

A Place

The Oval. The defining feature of the OSU campus. It appears in calendars, post cards, and it is the fifth image to appear on a google image search. The oval is sacred to any Buckeye that aquired his or her education here. It is kept the same, or at least similar whenever rennovations are done to buildings so that alumni who return for football games can go visit the tree under which he would picnic with his future wife, or that open part of the oval where he broke his nose playing football with his buddies. The thing that makes the Oval so sacred is the history of it, and the history of the individuals that spent time on it. Even the buildings resemble the original buildings on the oval. For example, the Wexner Center is modeled after the castle-esqe armory that once stood in its place, and the Thompson library had to delay its rennovations so they could preserve the part of the building facing the Oval. I hope that someday, I return here and can stand out in the center of the Oval and look around as memories from the different buildings jump out as me as I look at them. I hope to be one of the millions of memories that will always remain on the holy ground of The Ohio State University.

Writing in High School

The biggest fear of every student in Cherokee High School was the annual research paper. Every spring the rumors would begin to circulate about the potential topic of the research paper their teacher will assign. However, the teachers dreaded the research paper just as much as, if not more than the students. Despite four years of writing the same style and format, many seniors would still write theses such as "Do you want to know what George Orwell thinks about socialism? Read my analysis of Animal Farm to find out." Teachers would spend weeks attempting to show proper argument structure. They would give hints to writing a good opening paragraph. They would spend hours aiding students with thesis development. In the end, however, nothing got through to about half of the class, who would wait until the night before to write the entire paper, and turn in a poorly written paper.
However, I always enjoyed writing research papers. The teachers got through to me, and in my opinion the papers had interesting topics, and thought provoking research. My freshman year, I wrote a criticism of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. Sophomore year, I wrote an analysis of Hemingway's Snows of Kilimanjaro. Both my junior and senior I compared aspects of George Orwell's 1984 to contemporary America. In all cases, I found copious amounts of informative research, much of which I never used in a paper but held onto in memory. Perhaps it was my open mind and eagerness to learn that guided me to successful writing in high school, or perhaps it was great teachers, albeit grammar was hardly teached (sic) in any English class.

Alright! Let the blogging begin! I'm going to start off by saying I love OSU! I came all the way out here from South Jersey (yes, there is a difference between North and South) to experience the Midwest, and so far I think I've disappointed people because I don't have an accent, but it's been quite enjoyable. I hope these next four years treat me as well as these first two weeks!

--Ryan Van Fossen