Companion Essays

Companion Essays Companion Essay Companion Essay Elizabeth Schwartz Blizzard Arianne Zwartjes Companion Essay 4/18/10 The stance that I have chosen to take for the public argument was that I am against the act of piracy and to acquire a program called the Icarus at the University of Arizona. I chose to take this stance because after researching all of the different perspectives, I have personally witnessed the consequences due to illegal file downloading. In the beginning, my view on piracy was that it really isn’t that big of a deal. I agreed with stealing from the media because of how convenient it was for me and for my piers. Illegally downloading files was faster, cheaper, and easier than going out and buying a CD or going to spend ten dollars to see a movie. However, now that I have looked at all possible scenarios of getting caught and now fully understand the moral issue in this crime, I believe schools such as the University of Arizona should adopt programs, especially the Icarus, in order to reduce and completely prevent piracy. In order to try and actually adopt this program, I wrote a letter, almost like a petition, for students and those who also believe that the University of Arizona should eliminate illegal file sharing. I initially had a large black poster board with purple and gold glitter writing saying â€Å"I dare you† on it in order to lure people into seeing my website. It said I dare you across the entire board because I thought it was catchy enough to convince people they wanted to hear my argument and it was so shiny and large that people couldn’t turn their eyes away when they saw it. Once they came over, they were interested in what I was really â€Å"daring† them to do. After I got student’s attention, I showed them my website and tricked everyone by letting students think they could download songs and movies illegally. They read through the cases and realized that they were stealing once they couldn’t actually download any files. The letter I wrote is to the administrative assistant and the members of the dean of students advising that this program should be implemented because it will eliminate all illegal files sharing through the University’s networks. By enabling this program students will not only stop downloading files illegally but will also be penalized for doing so, ultimately ending all use or attempts at even doing so. At the end of the letter are tons of signatures showing the administration that people truly believe in this side of the controversy and that this move is really the best idea for the school. By having all these signatures, the administration will almost feel as if they need to implement this new program. I have chosen to write a letter because I believe that this will truly instill on the board members and show the true affect of the problem. Because other schools have already adopted this program, by the University of Arizona also doing so, it will better this school overall. I have interviewed two of my fellow piers, one, who even attends this school. During these interviews I had noticed that my friend punished at Arizona for illegally downloading files was just one student who was unfortunate, yet there are thousands of other students who do not get penalized for doing this. Max Cohen, the student from Arizona himself states, â€Å"At this University, you would think that because there are around 40,000 students at this school that they wouldnt even bother to try and catch people from downloading music and movies illegally because its just so common. But of course they caught me and now I have to go do community service, pay a fine, and write an essay for why what I did was wrong. Its stupid if you think about it. Everyone does it (Cohen 2010). Rather than forcing someone to pay a fine or write an essay about illegally downloading files, why not just have a program that blocks students from overall doing so, forcing students not to download anything illegally rather than just trying to do so again in the hopes of not getting caught? Implementing the Icarus might be the only option those in the media industry have: otherwise students will continue to try. This program will easily be the first step and when this program becomes more popular at universitie s across the globe, students will eventually realize how wrong it is when they realize they are stealing from the media. Overall, I believe that this letter and petition to the Administration and its board will be the biggest help and the first real step to eliminating the use of file sharing over the Internet. Enforcing this will truly help the media at officially really eliminating their products from being stolen from them. Other universities have already done so and with the addition of the University of Arizona will not only benefit the school itself but also ultimately end piracy at this school. Cohen, Maxwell. Illegally Downloading. Interview by Elizabeth Z. Schwartz. 17 Apr. 2010: 2. Print.

Definition and Examples of Overwriting

Definition and Examples of Overwriting Overwriting is a wordy writing style characterized by excessive detail, needless repetition, overwrought figures of speech, and/or convoluted sentence structures. For writers striving for color, advises author and editor Sol Stein, try, fly, experiment, but if it shows strain, if it isnt accurate, cut it (Stein on Writing, 1995). Examples and Observations Overwriting is the failure to make choices. . . . Linguistic bric-a-brac is literatures Elvis on velvet.(Paula LaRocque, Championship Writing: 50 Ways to Improve Your Writing. Marion Street, 2000)[Andrew] Davidsons approach is scattergun: for every lovely image (the unholy yoga of his crash), there is a horrible, almost parodic piece of overwriting (a cheese strand dangled from her mouth to the edge of her nipple, and I wanted to rappel it like a mozzarella commando).(James Smart, The Gargoyle. The Guardian, September 27, 2008)Even Great Writers Can OverwriteNote that some critics deeply admire the following passages by John Updike and Joan Didion. With uncommon perception, says Thomas L. Martin, Updike offers the beauty of these several figures which, lined up, converge in a significatory pattern as do these dropsin a single figurative mosaic (Poiesis and Possible Worlds, 2004). Likewise, the excerpt from On Self-Respect, one of Didions best-known essays, is frequently quoted approv ingly. Other readers, however, argue that Updikes images and Didions figurative comparisons are self-conscious and distractingin a word, overwritten. Decide for yourselves.- It was a window enchanted by the rarity with which I looked from it. Its panes were strewn with drops that as if by amoebic decision would abruptly merge and break and jerkily run downward, and the window screen, like a sampler half-stitched, or a crossword puzzle invisibly solved, was inlaid erratically with minute, translucent tesserae of rain.(John Updike, Of the Farm, 1965)- Although to be driven back upon oneself is an uneasy affair at best, rather like trying to cross a border with borrowed credentials, it seems to me now the one condition necessary to the beginnings of real self-respect. Most of our platitudes notwithstanding, self-deception remains the most difficult deception. The tricks that work on others count for nothing in that very well-lit back alley where one keeps assignations with oneself: no winning smiles will do here, no prettily drawn lists of good intentions. One shuffles flashily but in vain through ones marked cardsthe kindness done for the wrong reason, the apparent triumph which involved no real effort, the seemingly heroic act into which one had been shamed.(Joan Didion, On Self-Respect. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, 1968) Weltys WordinessSometimes writers get so excited about specificity and description that they begin to confuse them with mere wordiness. This is called overwriting and is a common early malady in apprentice writers. . . .Heres one of Eudora Weltys early first sentences: Monsieur Boule inserted a delicate dagger in Mademoiselles left side and departed with a poised immediacy.The solution to overcoming overwriting . . . is simply to exercise restraint and to remember the notion of immediacy. Weltys sentence, short of its too-fancy verbs and its excess of adjectives, might simply have read, Monsieur Boule stabbed Mademoiselle with a dagger and left the room in a hurry.(Julie Checkoway, Creating Fiction: Instruction and Insights From Teachers of the Associated Writing Programs. Writers Digest Books, 2001)Daniel Harris on OverwritingEven as my prose congealed into epic similes that grew more and more outlandish, I displayed absolute intolerance for the overwriting of others whose prose all owed me to study my own shortcomings at several removes, from a vantage point far above the vendetta I was waging as the self-appointed hatchet man of minority fiction. Often I was so blind to my tendency to write purple prose that I overwrote in the very act of criticizing overwriting, as . . . when I praised Patricia Highsmith, who, unlike other American writers, was so committed to telling her story that she never had any time to single out something for its own sake, to pluck it up from its context, and pet it from head to toe with long, voluptuous strokes of adjectives and metaphors. Far from being smug about my skills as a writer, I was bitterly frustrated, divided between my need to entertain my audience and my abhorrence of the prose that resulted from my acrobatic efforts to maintain my readers interest.(Daniel Harris, A Memoir Of No One In Particular. Basic Books, 2002) Do Not OverwriteRich, ornate prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating. If the sickly sweet word, the overblown phrase are a writers natural form of expression, as is sometimes the case, he will have to compensate for it by a show of vigor, and by writing something as meritorious as the Song of Songs, which is Solomons.(William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White, The Elements of Style, 3rd ed. Macmillan, 1979)