Wednesday, November 27, 2019

10 Things You Missed at Super Bowl 50

Last night, the NFL celebrated the 50th Super Bowl with huge performances and hard-hitting football. If you didn’t tune in, what did you miss? Here’s a quick rundown on the most important things you need to know:Peyton Manning became the first quarterback in NFL history to win 200 games. Beyonce and Bruno Mars were the halftime show special guests, and they knocked it out of the park. He also became the first NFL quarterback to win two Super Bowls with two different teams. Coldplay performed at Super Bowl 50’s halftime show, and the crowd played a huge part. A colorful performance sporting a positive message made Coldplay’s performance great. Though both quarterbacks struggled, the defenses played well for both teams. Von Miller won the MVP honor, as he caused two turnovers and finished with 2.5 sacks. Lady Gaga sang the National Anthem, and reminded everyone just how talented she is. Showcased during commercial breaks, there are so many new movies coming out soon. From Marvel to DC, from Jason Bourne to Independence Day 2, 2016 is surely going to be a fun year for film. Simply put: Puppy Monkey Baby is terrifying. On the other hand, Heinz stole the spotlight while catching the hearts of millions with their ketchup ad. Dozens of Dachshunds sprinted through an open field, which, coincidentally, made millions of people immediately want to buy new puppies. You would think Eli Manning, brother of last night’s game-winning QB Peyton Manning, would be happy that his brother just won the Super Bowl. You’d be wrong.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

The Traditional Modes of Discourse in Composition

The Traditional Modes of Discourse in Composition In composition studies, the term modes of discourse refers to the four traditional categories of written texts: narration, description, exposition, and argument. Also known as the  rhetorical modes and forms of discourse. In 1975, James Britton and his associates at the University of London questioned the usefulness of the modes of discourse as a way of teaching students how to write. The tradition is profoundly prescriptive, they observed, and shows little inclination to observe the writing process: its concern is with how people should write rather than how they do (The Development of Writing Abilities [11-18]). Also see: Current-Traditional RhetoricDiscourseExpository WritingModels of CompositionTheme Writing Examples and Observations Beginning with Samuel Newmans Practical Systems of Rhetoric of 1827, American rhetoric textbooks . . . were supplementing Whatelian argumentative rhetoric with other modes. Teachers were coming to prefer books that offered concrete treatment of the different sorts of communication aims obviously served by writing. As writing displaced oral rhetoric, the older insistence on a single argumentative purpose did not serve, and in 1866 the desire for a multimodal rhetorical system was met by Alexander Bain, whose English Composition and Rhetoric proposed the multimodal system that has remained to this day, the forms or modes of discourse: narration, description, exposition, and argument.(Robert Connors, Composition-Rhetoric. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997)Writing in Multiple Modes- A mode is . . . considered as one dimension of a subject, a way of viewing the subject as static or dynamic, abstract or concrete. A typical discourse, then, may make use of all the modes. For instance, to write about a monarch butterfly we may narrate about the butterfly (e.g., trace its migration north in the spring or its life cycle), describe the butterfly (orange and black, about three inches wide), classify it (species, Danaus Plexippus, belonging to the family Danaidae, the milkweed butterflies, order Lepidoptera); and evaluate it (one of the most beautiful and best known of butterflies). However, even though the discourse may include all of the modes, it is common to use one of the modes to organize the discourse, as is suggested by the title of one of [James L.] Kinneavys textbooks: Writing: Basic Modes of Organization, by Kinneavy, Cope, and Campbell.(Mary Lynch Kennedy, ed. Theorizing Composition: A Critical Sourcebook of Theory And Scholarship in Contemporary Composition Studies. IAP, 1998)|- No theory of modes of discourse ever pretends that the modes do not overlap. In actuality, it is impossible to have pure narration, etc. However in a given discourse there will often be . . . [a] dominant mode. . . .These four  modes of discourse [narration, classification, description, and evaluation]  are  not an application of the communication triangle. They actually are grounded in certain philosophic concepts of the nature of reality considered as being or becoming.(James Kinneavy, A Theory of Discourse. Prentice Hall, 1972) Problems With the Modes of DiscourseThe modes are faulted for relying on faculty and associationist psychology. Faculty psychology assumes the mind is governed by the faculties of understanding, imagination, passion, or will. Associationist psychology contends that we know the world through the grouping, or association, of ideas, which follows basic laws and order. Thus early proponents of the modes of discourse assumed that one should choose a form of discourse according to the faculty to be influenced and based on laws of association. . . .In light of current composition theory, problems with the modes of discourse as a guiding principle of composition pedagogy are numerous. For example, Sharon Crowley (1984) faults the modes for focusing only on text and writer, ignoring the audience, and thus being arhetorical.(Kimberly Harrison, Contemporary Composition Studies. Greenwood, 1999)Adams Sherman Hill on the Kinds of Composition (1895)The four kinds of composition that seem to requir e separate treatment are: Description, which deals with persons or things; Narration, which deals with acts or events; Exposition, which deals with whatever admits of analysis or requires explanation; Argument, which deals with any material that may be used to convince the understanding or to affect the will. The purpose of description is to bring before the mind of the reader persons or things as they appear to the writer. The purpose of narration is to tell a story. The purpose of exposition is to make the matter in hand more definite. The purpose of argument is to influence opinion or action, or both.In theory these kinds of composition are distinct, but in practice two or more of them are usually combined. Description readily runs into narration, and narration into description: a paragraph may be descriptive in form and narrative in purpose, or narrative in form and descriptive in purpose. Exposition has much in common with one kind of description; and it may be of service to an y kind of description, to narration, or to argument.(Adams Sherman Hill, The Principles of Rhetoric, rev. edition. American Book Company, 1895)

Thursday, November 21, 2019

Did strategy drive war or did war drive strategy in early modern and Essay

Did strategy drive war or did war drive strategy in early modern and modern France - Essay Example ue Protestants in France while helping Protestant organizations abroad— so as well did strategy turned out to be restrained.iii The bloodbath of the Thirty Years’ War gave way to wars fought for ‘reason’, to enlarge the ruler’s interests and through him the entire stateiv: hence the birth of strategy in early modern and modern France. While scholars analyzed old Roman literatures to unearth the element that made the legion indestructible mechanisms of strategy, so too did strategy practitioners revisit the Classical period where in the premise of foreign policy influenced the waging of war.v For some time, the growth of the newly centralized government and the creation of gunpowder seemed to destroy the formidability of fortifications: medieval defenses failed to endure the thrashing of late 15th- or early 16th-century weaponry.vi However, the creation of thoroughly devised geometric buttresses brought back a great deal of the balance. A well-defended kingdom was yet again a strong barrier to attacks, one that would entail a considerable amount of time and energy to weaken. The building of series of fortified towns along an empire’s border was the major peacetime ideas of strategists.vii Strategy started to look more like science than ability, method rather than art. Practitioners, like Sebastien Le Prestre de Vauban, a 17th-century French engineer, and baron de Jomini, an 18th-century French military historian and general, pioneered in making war a business of principles, guidelines, and laws.viii Expectedly, these developments overlapped with the construction of military academies and an ever more reforming and scientific inclination--- officers took lessons in military engineering and artillerists took lessons in trigonometry.ix Literature on military strategy mushroomed. Jacques Antoine Hippolyte’s Essai general de tactique, was one of the most insightful works that organized military philosophy, even though Guibert had inclinations of bigger