Essay 2 Rough Draft

Thinh Bui

February 25, 2012

Rough Draft

           

            Linsanity: the recent craze that has developed around the world due to Jeremy Lin’s outbreak as a star basketball player for the New York Knicks.

            Basketball stars are usually projected to become great or drafted early in the NBA drafts, but that wasn’t the case for Jeremy Lin. Lin’s story is different; he was the underdog. Although Lin led his high school team to win a state championship title, he didn’t receive any athletic scholarships and he was not selected during the 2010 NBA draft but was still determined to make it in the NBA. Jeremy Lin is in his second year as a NBA player and has been through numerous teams including Golden State Warriors, Houston Rockets, and now the New York Knicks. He was also placed in the NBA’s Development League. Linsanity began to develop when Lin received the opportunity to play against the New Jersey Nets on February 4, 2012. Lin took that opportunity and played his best NBA career game leading his team to win against the Nets. Lin became the new starting point guard after his stellar performance in the Nets game and went on to lead the Knicks, a mediocre team, to a seven game win streak. After that, Linsanity was on full blast and Jeremy Lin officially became a star.

            Jeremy Lin has been the talk of the press and blogosphere since he has emerged as a star in the NBA. When following the circulation of recent articles on Jeremy Lin’s relationship with Yao Ming, there are noticeably different changes and purposes behind each article.

            On February 11, 2012 ESPN.go.com released the article, “Lin on Yao Ming: ‘He’s a big brother to me’” by Jared Zwerling. It discussed the close bond the two players, Jeremy Lin and Yao Ming, had with one another. The article includes an original quote from Jeremy Lin stating,

“’I talk to Yao after every game’, said Lin, who took part in Yao’s foundation tour in Taiwan in August 2010.’He’s taken me out to eat every time we’re in the same city. He obviously is a role model and a big brother and mentor to me. We keep in touch all the time.’”(1)

The article also questioned whether Jeremy Lin would be the next great Asian player to take over Yao’s stardom by asking the question, “Can Lin take over that prestigious position”; prestigious position referring to Yao’s position as the “Asian ambassador of the NBA”(1). Not only was Jared Zwerling purpose in this writing to share Lin and Yao’s friendship but to arise the question of whether or not Lin can become the next Asian phenomenon.

            The following day, on February 12, on the NYDailyNews .com, “Lin on Yao: ‘He’s obviously a role model and a big brother,’” was published on their website and written by Frank Isola.  Frank Isola’s purpose behind this article is slightly different from the original writing. He still includes the quote about Lin and Ming’s friendship but decides to disregard the other statement about Lin being the new sensation. Instead, Isola focuses more on Jeremy Lin’s character and the way he has reflected his newly found fame upon his team mates and coaches. Isola claims “Lin hands out praises as often as he dishes out assists” (1).  The article illustrates Lin’s character by incorporating quotes from Jeremy Lin.

“Jared Jeffries is an absolutely glue guy for this team. What he does defensively, every single rotation… his whole demeanor, his whole aura, everyone respects him so much. I can’t think of anyone more underrated than Jared” (1).

This new addition to the story promotes Jeremy Lin to not only be a good basketball player but also, a great person as well. To omit the statements that questioned how big Jeremy Lin was going to get in the previous article, gives the audience the chance to ignore what the future has for Jeremy Lin and rather focus on the present and how he is handling his newly found popularity.

            The article “Yao Ming Wanted Jeremy Lin in Shanghai,” written by Scott Schroeder, was published by SBNation.com on February 14, 2012. The articles intent was to discuss Jeremy Lin’s career and all the different places he could have ended up instead of New York. There are more comments about Jeremy and his chances of joining the Shanghai Sharks, Los Angeles Lakers, and other NBA teams than comments about Lin and Yao’s friendship. The previous quote about Jeremy and Yao’s friendship does come up in this article but it is irrelevant with the writing due to the different purpose behind this article. Schroeder reports the different career paths that Jeremy Lin could have ended up on by pointing out, “There were numerous times that he almost ended up with the Los Angeles Lakers” (1) and “he could have stuck with the Dallas Mavericks out of the summer league.” Compared to the original article, this article didn’t lose much material but it did take the focus away from Yao Ming’s role on Jeremy Lin and replaced that focus with all of Lin’s career paths. By doing this, Schroeder completely changes the original topic and chose to begin a new one.

            The article, “Yao among many Chinese fans rooting on Lin’s success story,” written by Fran Blinebury was published on NBA.com on February 16, 2012. This article talks mainly about Yao’s feelings towards Jeremy Lin and his unique style of basketball. Yao is quoted saying, “He (Jeremy Lin) has a high basketball IQ, but he also has more. He has and IQ about how to get along with people.” Yao has observed much more than just the hype behind Linsanity; he has also followed Jeremy Lin’s great attributes. Yao also reports that Jeremy “seems to be natural at making friendships and getting the team to play with him.” Along with praising Jeremy Lin, Yao Ming also took the time to clear up misconceptions that the public has received about Yao being Jeremy’s mentor. Yao states, “First, Jeremy doesn’t need my help. He is very talented himself. And I am a big man and could not teach him how to be a guard.” Yao’s statement acknowledges the accusations that he was Lin’s mentor while stating the truth. Since Blinebury presented the idea that Yao was Jeremy’s mentor then presented Yao’s quote as a counter argument, he used Joseph Harris’s technique of countering. This article has swayed off path with the original article and has lost the focus of Yao and Lin’s bond.

            The new worldwide sensation of Jeremy Lin is not only inspirational because of its’ hardworking underdog story, but also because with him in the NBA, Asian and Asian-American communities now have another representative in the NBA. Like Yao Ming, since his breakout on the NBA scene, China and other Asian countries have gained more interest in the NBA. They are both promoting the sport of basketball in the Asian communities. Yao endorses that he “hopes the direction of the Lin story goes to furthering the development of basketball talent among Asians and Asian-Americans and getting more to reach the highest levels of the game.” As a Vietnamese-American basketball player, I see Linsanity bringing respect to the Asian ball players and creating interest in a sport that Asians didn’t appreciate. Yao Ming and Jeremy Lin are the icons that the Asian community needs to instill the sport of basketball into their life.

            The press and blogosphere has shown that due to the easy access of information through the web, anyone can have the capability to write their own version of a news story and add or delete anything they wish. With the use of links, people are beginning to access their news independently. For the story of Jeremy Lin and Yao Ming’s relationship, the headlines started out as two friends and have changed throughout the circulation period. I was pleasantly surprised to see that no articles shifted from the original story and turned into a negative story. In today’s society, there has been incidences where writers and the media focus on the negative aspects of stories instead of the positive aspect to stir up controversy. As the contents in the original article moves to other sources, the purpose and intent of the content changes to whichever way best fits the new author’s style. The press and blogosphere is continuously changing and as information is passed to different sources, the purpose of each article will continue to change with it.

Taking an Approach

            Harris’s chapter about taking an approach caused a lot of confusion for me. There seemed to be more than one way to take an approach and they are to acknowledge influences, turn an approach on itself, and reflexivity. The way I  found Harris describing what taking an approach was instead of just rewriting something the exact same way the previous author wrote it, take the information that is present and put a twist and new style to it to change its’ original form but still have the same roots. Include your own writing style or method of writing so that the new piece of writing has a piece of you in it. While reading this chapter, his examples were helpful, but the example that kept popping up in my head is the remake of older movies.

            Taking an approach can be seen when a director takes an old movie script and directs a somewhat new movie but with the same story line. The director adds his own style of movie making and that is why people choose to watch remakes of movies.

            The example of taking an approach that I saw while reading Deadspin today was an article about Brady Quinn bashing Tim Tebow with hurtful comments. I previously read a similar article on Yahoo and noticed that Deadspin had wrote the same content, but there presentation style was different. Yahoo’s article was less opinionated and more of what occurred while Deadspin told the facts right away and included more opinions as well as  more of a comedic writing style.

Forwarding My Old Post

Example of Forwarding:

For this blog post, I have decided to write a completely new blog and incorporate illustrating, one of the ways to forward, into the new post. I will use my previous post about the New York Times to add as an example to my argument of how Hedges and Carr is correct when he states that the younger generation only reads what the eye finds interesting and the use of skimming. With a quote out of my previous blog post, my argument that Carr and Hedges is correct will be stronger because it provides a good example.

            Hedges and Carr strongly believes that the constant use of the web and new technology has cause a downward spiral in today’s literacy. They believe that due to the new technology and the web, the younger generation has begun to read and write less as well as lose their abilities to become a deep reader. Car states that the younger generation only skims through reading material. They are incapable of staying focus and are always distracted by things around them. In a blog called BlogNasty, the blogger says,

 “I have only read articles that have immediately interested me.  As bad as that seems, it is an improvement from not reading the news at all. I have tendencies to focus more on the big named stories and skim through the small articles on the sides of the paper.”

BlogNasty is admitting to the exact same allegations that Hedges and Carr’s has presented. He is among many younger generations that this information pertains too!

Countering - Harris

Joseph Harris’s idea of “countering” is exactly what it seems to be. You are countering the work of another author! In other words, you are disagreeing with the ideas/points that an author is making and writing the opposing side of that argument. He points out three steps to countering and they are: “argue the other side”, “uncovering values”, and “dissenting”. For “argue the other side”, you present the other authors idea or argument and then present your counter argument. For “uncovering values”, you bring up any concepts that the author failed to discuss or acknowledge. For “dissenting”, you begin to develop your counter argument and present it.

                Since reading Deadspin, I haven’t found too many instances where an author actually used “countering”. Most of the blogs that I have read includes sports news and sports interests. The only case that I have seen may be the incident of the word “chink” in an ESPN’s mobile article. A writer used the word “chink” in his title and now ESPN is regretting it. There has been multiple blogs about the damage this has to ESPN’s name and to the Asian community, but I feel this isn’t really an act of “countering”.

                When countering someone’s work, it is extremely important to only focus on the writer’s argument and text. Avoiding any personal vendetta and only focusing on the writing doesn’t allow the chance to ruin your own writing with questions of validity and overall purpose. This way, the reader can gain the knowledge of your counter argument without and suspicion of false information.

Forwarding- Harris

Harris’s concept of forwarding is basically the use of another author’s text in your own writing. But with Harris’s simple idea, there are four sub components to it. There are four different versions of forwarding and they are illustrating, authorizing, borrowing and extending. When illustrating someone else’s writing, you are presenting their writing to make your argument stronger. You are taking out parts of their writing that you can use in your advantage and presenting them. Authorizing is citing another author’s writing to add validity to your own writing. Borrowing is using the other authors ideas or text in your own. Extending is incorporating their ideas but adding/extending to their argument with your own ideas.

                One term or phrase that I have seen being forward frequently around the sports world is the term “Linsanity”. Throughout the past two weeks Jeremy Lin as emerged as a star in the NBA and shows and blogs can’t help themselves with the term “Linsanity”. In the blog that I follow, Deadspin, incorporating “Linsanity” in their work or title automatically draws fans to it and they are using it to their advantage to draw the fans into reading their blogs. I’ve also noticed kind of an extending notion on Linsanity as well. People around the world have begun creating their own pun with his name. For example, Linderella story, Lindescribable, Linvincible. They have used one person’s creative idea of adding Lin’s name in front of any word that would fit and turned it into hundreds of newly used terms.

The New Sphere Movement

The New York Times and the blog that I follow, Deadspin, have very different styles of writing. I have notice that in Deadspin, the news articles are more for your entertainment and written in that way. It is freely written with opinions and curse words that draw in a certain audience. Its lack of professionalism is what intrigues me and keeps me reading more. The New York Times on the other hand is more news orientated although some stories can be presented to entertain the reader. But it is just the presentation, the info is strictly news. The writers want to make the articles more readable to their audience so they add things to make it more interesting and entertaining.

                The mobile site of Deadspin is quite handy. For their blogs, I have noticed that for some stories they only have a couple of sentences and a link. The sentence that they show is the most interesting sentence in the whole article but since the information is so little, you are forced to click on the link to continue to read. Due to the links, the author of the blog has an easier job. Instead of writing a whole article about another article, they can simply post a link for all to read the original article and call it a day. That saves the author plenty of time for other projects or to take a nap! This new press sphere is among blogs more than newspapers. I’ve noticed some changes to New York Times, but not many.

The New Press Sphere

Jarvis’s illustration of the new press sphere seems correct. He defines the new press sphere as something anyone can get involved with due to the internet. People who want to join the press sphere have the capability to do so by creating their own version of news stories or by adding links to enhance the story. He adds that due to this new press sphere, our old traditions are disappearing. For example paper begins to be non-existent as photos become more prevalent. The new press sphere is giving everyone a chance to become news writers in their own way. This reminded me of the time a fellow student edited a story on Wikipedia and added a random link to cougars, proving anyone can create news very easily as long as they have the motivation to do so.

            His model, for the most part, was not confusing to me. It seemed to make perfect sense and the models cleared up and confusions that I had. In today’s news, I mainly retrieve it online with plenty of links to click on. Although the links are there, the only times that I click on them is if I am over interested on a topic and I want to learn more about it. Otherwise, the article that I am on holds all the information that I am usually looking for. To me, the links can be obnoxious and overwhelming. They can cover up the story you are looking for and sometimes even take you of track. Links are helpful in certain situations but I usually avoid them.

http://img.chinasmack.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/jeremy-lin-linsanity-wallpaper-by-angelmaker666-560x350.jpg

The blog

Www.deadspin.com
I'm following this blog because it is a blog about sports and that's what I'm interested in!

NY TIMES

            I have noticed while reading through the NY Times, I have only read articles that have immediately interested me.  As bad as that seems, it is an improvement from not reading the news at all. I have tendencies to focus more on the big named stories and skim through the small articles on the sides of the paper. In doing this I have missed plenty of articles and basically discriminated against the smaller, weirdly placed articles. Also, since I usually only read articles that look interesting, I miss out on the ones that do not pop out to me right away. I am missing out on crucial news events and if I’m not going to read them, how will I ever know what is going on? Facebook? This is going to have to change. Officially it is my promise to this blog!!

            Ever since I have beginning to focus more of my time reading the news and seeing what the world is up to, I have found myself involuntarily reading the news for fun without even knowing that I am doing so. I actually just realized this as I was reflecting on this post. I cannot seem to pin point any other changes due to the news but slowly, I am sure I will see some differences in my reading and reading. The only other change is that I have been enjoying reading more and that is always a positive.

            I still need to get out of my comfort zone of reading personal interest articles and sports articles and begin reading about the world’s problems.

Comparing the News

                Compared to my classmates, I am beyond behind on keeping up with the news because it’s apparent that they go out of their way to see what’s going on in the world. For my case, the news usually comes to me. For example, when opening up my internet explorer, Yahoo is the first thing that pops up and it has a spot for news articles that immediately catch your attention. This is mainly how I get my news but in my classmate’s blogs, I have noticed the get their news from a variety of places.

            Finding out that mostly all of my classmate’s get their news from the internet was not a surprise at all. In fact, seeing that some of them actually read news from a newspaper was surprising!! Websites such as CNN, New York Times, and even Facebook was used to get news.

            Getting news from Facebook was unexpected. I thought I was going to be the only one to say that but as I was reading my classmate’s blog, I saw that someone also found out about the death of Osama Bin Laden on it, just as I did. Facebook is beginning to have a lot more purposes now then it previously had. People are beginning to realize everything you can do with it and some people are actually post important things on there. I have seen more news on Facebook than I have ever seen before!!

            It’s apparent that we are more focused on literature on the internet than paper form and I’m pretty sure Hedges is looking at all of us with disgust!

A New Age of Literacy

Thinh Bui

Final Draft

New Age of Literacy

Audience: New advances in technology, such as the web and smart phones, have made the older generation feel nervous. Scared of how it is changing the younger generation and what it can potentially do in the future, many people are perceiving technology as a negative thing. Writers such as Chris Hedges and Nicholas Carr are among them. They are skeptical and afraid of the unknown. By depicting the web with all of its’ different forms of social media and search engines, I am able to provide them with the basis of my counter argument that the web is not slowly deteriorating our literacy skills but rather it is evolving it into a new and better type of literacy.

Through new technology and the web, we have created a new way to interact and socialize with other people. Because of technology, we are able to keep in touch with people from across the globe. Facebook is very popular with the younger generation. It is a social network that allows people to keep their friends updated on what they are doing by uploading photos, updating their status, posting messages on their friends’ walls, and chatting with their friends. Twitter, a social networking site for micro-blogging, allows people to send instant updates to their network and follow people of interest to them.  

Before social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, writing was non-existent outside of the classroom, which led Andrea Lunsford, a writing and rhetoric professor at Stanford University, to believe that, “Technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it—and pushing our literacy in bold new directions” (Thompson 1). With technology, we are able to incorporate more writing into our daily lives as well as mastering kairos, which is the ability to “assess their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across” (Thompson 1). Lunsford found that students are really good at tailoring their message to fit their audience and using different tones and techniques to state a point. Technology and social networking sites are forcing the younger generation to write more and in a variety of ways. For example, a tweet can have a maximum of 140 characters, which means that we have to be very concise in our communication. Technology and the web are changing the younger generation’s style of writing, but with that change it is also allowing us to write more and learn new ways to write on our own.

Although the positive aspects of technology and the web are apparent, there is still skepticism towards the effects of technology and the web. The older generation believes that if something is not broken then it does not need fixing. Although not everyone from the older generation is closed minded, I found this to be true with my friend’s grandmother. Her house is filled with old things like cassette players, antenna televisions, and even out dated couches. She does not want to change the way she is living because she is so comfortable and use to how things already are. Hedges and Carr feel that the traditional way of reading and writing had little to no flaws so there is no reason to change it. Their fear of the new outcome due to technology and the web is blurring their vision to see the positive effects. If they were less scared and more willing to change, they will see that there are a lot of things that can benefit them and make their lives easier. For example, instead of spending countless hours in the library searching through books for information for your research paper, you can quickly get the information online. The Internet has eliminated the time a student would waste flipping through pages after pages of books and replaced it with a quick and simple search on the web that contains everything a student needs. The endless amount of information that can be obtained by a click of a button has changed the way we retrieve literature and how we write.

            Unlike the older generation, we yearn for change and like to do what is in style. We are comfortable with change. Experimenting and adapting to changes are great qualities that we have acquired because it allows us to approach new things with caution but without the fear to hold us back. We are able to look past the unknowns and take in all the exciting new ways of the web. Without the fear that possesses the older generation, we are able to take advantage of everything that technology and the web has to offer.

Nicholas Carr’s concern about the effects of technology and the web on our reading ability is a fair argument. Reading has strayed away from the traditional sense not only by changing from paper form to electronic form, but in other aspects as well. He has found that the web and technology has caused people’s inability to be a “deep reader.” Skimming and power browsing have become more prominent.  These arguments may be true, but there are advantages to skimming. Being able to skim through long articles and getting the important points is truly a skill. It is challenging to process the content while skimming. This new skill, which was caused by technology and the web, has benefited countless students. I have been assigned long readings by professor and told to skim and take the most out of it. Also, due to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, we have become fixed on reading short materials since we constantly read updates and tweets, which results in us reading more than we have ever had. The exposure to these social networking sites increases our total reading time. Technology is changing the way we read and write but the change that is occurring is increasing the amount of time that we actively read and write. Therefore this change is promoting us to be better readers and writers.

Although, my web usage, along with my classmates’, supports Carr’s argument about short attention span, it illustrates that the web is surrounding the younger generation with more things to read and write without them thinking it is an assignment, meaning that they are involuntarily enjoying reading and writing. There are so many distractions on the web, making it almost impossible to avoid them. By wasting our time on social networking sites and being distracted by other sites, we are spending more time reading and writing, which I see as beneficial since we are getting more exposure to literacy.

The web holds great wonders but you, the older generation, are too frightened to absorb everything it has to offer. It has an endless amount of information that is easily accessible. Many believe that it is too much information for anyone to handle.  Carr states a person will have, “information overload, that is instantly available (Carr 7).” He believes the quick fix of information is unmanageable and will lead to the destruction of literacy since we can obtain information without much effort. Any questions that we may have can be answered instantly.  For example, if your recipe book has been misplaced or lost, instead of trying to remember how to cook the perfect pot roast or trying to contact a relative to see if they know the recipe, you can simply turn on the computer and search for a pot roast recipe. Although thousands of recipes will show up, it still provides you with a quick response. You might even find a new recipe for pot roast that tastes much better than your original recipe. The ability of the web is boundless. 

In conclusion, technology and the web have transformed literacy to a different level. Lunsford states, "I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization” (Thompson 1). Technology and the web has made us become better writers by teaching us kairos without us ever being aware of it and it has made writing more common outside of school-related activities, forcing us to interact and improve our writing styles. We have learned new methods of reading, including skimming and power browsing. The older generation’s assumption that the web is slowly deteriorating our ability to be literate is the opposite of what the web is actually doing for us. It has created a new type of literacy that has been formed by a faster way to get information, unlimited amounts of information from a click of a button, and more encounters with literacy. The older generation is missing out on the wonders of the new technology and the web. All they have to do to benefit from it is let go of the fear that possesses them and embrace the change.

Work Cited

Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" TheAtlantic.com. July 2008. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/>.

Thompson, Clive. "Clive Thompson on the New Literacy." Wired.com. 24 Aug. 2009. Web. 29 Jan. 2012. <http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-09/st_thompson>.

News

Interesting enough, I have just noticed I get mostly all of my news off the internet. There is the casual news that I receive from talking to friends but more often than not, we do not discuss the news too much. Our conversations seem to consist more about our daily life and interests than what is going on in the world. Whenever I do receive words on current news, it is always from one of these three sites: Facebook, Yahoo, or YouTube. My lack of effort on being more aware of what is going on in the world has causes me to not even bother to search the news for anything. Usually, Yahoo would post their most important stories in the middle of their website and if it interests me, I would click on it to read more. On Facebook, if I see someone’s status talking about an interesting news topic, I would just open a new tab and read it as well. I do not go out looking for news but if it happens to be presented to me, I will read it.

            There are other places that I occasionally get news from. The radio is one that I might retrieve a little bit of news from. Usually, the stations always have breaks in between their music to discuss topics and sometimes when I am lazy to switch the station, I would sit and listen to what they have to say. I am constantly watching Sportscenter to catch up on every sport related news that I have missed. This channel would be where I obtain over half of my news.