Blog assignment #6

One example of paraphrase: The largest social networking website, MySpace, has approximately 320,000 new users join every day. (Clemmitt)
One example of a quotation: According to Chris Hansen, author of To Catch a Predator, “An appealing picture, a friendly query, a similarity of interests, or someone just seems ‘cool’ is often more than enough for kids to make exceptions and let someone into their site that they don’t, in fact, know” (Hansen 135).

Why did the writer choose to present their research material in this way?

Because the paraphrase of some statistics can make the essay much realer and the quotations in the essay all fit well in the paragraphs, meantime, these make the essay seem to be much more believable.

How does the research contribute to the overall meaning of the essay?

The research can make this essay more believable. Since this is an essay about the publication of personal profile on social networking website, the statistics the author listed make the essay very serious and accurate and the sentences cited from some other works make the essay realer and persuasive and powerful.

Blog assignment #5

Winners of the war are also the winners of the history. However, things are not always what the winners think it look like. Even though losers are beaten in the war, they have their reasons. For example, in the First Opium War, China was beaten by Great Britain, and had to sign the aggressive treaty, that is, Treaty of Nanjing. China, as a loser, really had her own reasons for this failure. In the end of Qing Dynasty, the government of the nation was very weak and corrupt. Lots of officials were addicted to the opium imported from Europe. Some lower class officials would bribe the upper class officials to make them say something to the Emperor. The Emperor then was puzzled by the flattery and was not clear about the truth. In the meantime, the English merchants took advantage of the weaknesses of the officials’ addiction to the opium, and forced the officials to flatter the upper class officials or even the Emperor by using the opium as a temptation.

Although the losers are not willing to be beaten, they have rights and the reasons to explain their failure. The history from the losers’ angle may not be that much beautiful, however, it may be encouraging.