I
decided to do my PB2A on the scholarly article “Immortality and Boredom” by John Martin Fischer and Benjamin
Mitchell-Yellin of UC Riverside. After messing around with the library search, I put
down some interesting words in the search bar and got an amazing result. Now, I
don’t want to live forever nor do I have an obsession with eternal youth or something.
But this was a topic that got my attention. By being engaged in the actual
reading, I’ll probably do a better job analyzing it. By observing the
rhetorical features and conventions, we can answer the questions posed and how concepts
were operationalized.
First
off, from a quick glance at the scholarly article, we can see some common
conventions that can be seen in almost any academic article. There is a big bold
title, an abstract, keywords, an introduction, long and multiple paragraphs, a
conclusion, and several references. In the abstract and intro we get a sense of
what the article will be about. The authors tone is scholarly as well as playful.
From the last sentence of the intro the author throws in a short joke, “We hope that this exercise will
be illuminating and we also dare to hope that it will not be entirely boring
for the reader!” This actually made smile and made me want to keep reading, I was
not expecting this especially from a scholarly article. The article itself was not
solely on what immortality is and how to obtain it rather it was about what comes
with it, which was boredom. From the last sentence the author includes irony
that engages the audience and was executed nicely.
After
reading a few pages of the article, we can see how the author structured his
arguments and evidence to support his thoughts. He included both sides on why
it would be boring to be immortal and why it would not be. This inclusion helped the audience essentially choose a side. His pros and cons can help us
understand the topic clearly.
The
author also posed several questions. For example, some of first questions he
posed was, “What kinds of boredom can be seen through immortality?” “Is boredom
the same for every immortal individual?” These were the types of questions that
brought life to the article. The questions ultimately got the paper to be
created and published. By questioning the claims of other philosophers and
writers, the authors provided and added their own ideas to the bigger question
of immortality. I thought the very important parts of the articles were these
ideas of the authors. Where they looked at other works and reacted or responded
to them. Their own thoughts have even caused me to wonder about something as
abstract as immortality. Encouraging others to raise their own questions leads
to new material being created and even published.
Overall,
the scholarly article of Immortality and
Boredom was an interesting genre. A genre that was quite different from the
other types of works we looked at such as, comics, memes, reviews, and letters.
From what I saw, there isn’t much separating the two aside from the obvious. Each
one had a specific reason to reach an audience. To think, to persuade, or to entertain,
are some of the concepts they had in common.
Immortality and Boredom:
http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.ucsb.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=34&sid=31be01e9-e938-4c33-8207-bce879cb5a1a%40sessionmgr102&hid=106
Hey Edwin,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed that you talked about the jokes and more playful tone of this article and how you were surprised that these were features in a scholarly article. I wrote part of my PB on how scholarly articles follow conventions that make them boring so it's refreshing to see that not every scholarly article out there is as boring as most of them are. Although the topic seems pretty silly I still think it is really interesting to think about. Immortality would have a lot of positive and negative implications and it is quite the topic for speculation.
Best,
Dan
Wow, just reading the title of your article caught my attention. I mean, what’s more exciting than reading about boredom? I completely agree with you that writing about something that’s interesting improves the writing.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, your choice of article is really neat. I don’t think there are plenty of scholarly articles that would slip in a joke or two, or add some character to their paper. I also like how you continually referred to the subject of immortality by using words such as “life” and “creation” in your analysis. It kept reminding me about the topic of your chosen article.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI especially wanted to read your PB2A after hearing Zack say in section today how well you did on WP1! I was very impressed by your approach to this assignment. You made a very clear argument and organized the information well. You did a great job using transitions between ideas and incorporating your own analysis with information that was provided by the article. I really liked your insight on the questions that were answered by the author in the article. I felt like you took your thoughts one step further than you had to which I appreciated as a reader. You seem to have a really clear idea about scholarly articles and I thought that you defined the conventions well.
Edwin!
ReplyDeleteI am glad you got into a certain topic after such a long look.
I absolutely loved your first paragraph because I think that it is very important to note those conventions we see right off the back but do not find important at first. I feel like most of us just pass right through them and never mention them again.
I think the structure of your paper was great and it flowed very easily. I also think that posing all the questions that author had and then responding to them with your own thoughts was a great move. You did a really good job with this piece!
-Casandra Phillips