Life of David Shields

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Shields

A link that depicts David Shield and his life.

A few of his works in chronological order:

• How Literature Saved My Life, Knopf, 2013
• Jeff, One Lonely Guy, co-author with Jeff Ragsdale and Michael Logan, Amazon Publishing, March 2012
• The Inevitable: Contemporary Writers Confront Death, Co-Editor with Bradford Morrow, W.W. Norton, 2011
• Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, Knopf, 2010
• The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, Knopf, 2008
• Body Politic: The Great American Sports Machine, Simon & Schuster, 2004
• Enough About You: Adventures in Autobiography, Simon & Schuster, 2002
• "Baseball Is Just Baseball": The Understated Ichiro, TNI Books, 2001
• Black Planet: Facing Race during an NBA Season, Crown, 1999
• Remote: Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity, Knopf, 1996
• Handbook for Drowning: A Novel in Stories, Knopf 1992
• Dead Languages: A Novel, Knopf 1989
• Heroes: A Novel, Simon & Schuster, 1984

David Shields Reality Hunger

Reality Hunger by David Shields is a book collage of multiple different works compiled to give different views on the term "realness". Using many different forms of literature, Shields creates a novel with a unique genre that baffles and confuses many readers into trying to figure out his "real" intention and purpose. He reiterates so many of his ideas using other people's works that he gives the readers a repeating theme of "realness" and what it means.

Real Talk Transcript/Video

Leo Son, Michael Son

Dr.Harkey

English 1101 P2

8 October 2012

Revised Verbatim Transcript

Leo: Hey, how are you doing?

Michael: Hey Good, what about you? 

Leo: Good, I am doing this English assignment, and I don’t know what the hell is going on.

Michael: Dude, I took that class last semester. I can help. What’s the topic?

Leo: Alright, so the topic that we have is: In Jackson's article it says, "we are adapting to a new world, but in doing so, are we redefining 'smart' to mostly mean twitch speed, multitasking, and bullet points?" Jackson brings up an interesting point that as the Earth is changing so is our view of what we believe is going to be successful and what will survive in the constantly changing world. Is the standards and definition of being successful and smart changing as the world is changing? Are the standards being raised or are they being changed completely?…And so you can start off with technology and media.

Michael: Yeah

Leo: and how it is just really changing and just how the new generation is doing things.

Michael: Right. Such as, you know, Google instant search, which people basically can search any information they want instantly. 

Leo: Yeah.

Michael: and Youtube videos. Both of them are very instant and people can attain information very fast. According to a few websites, statistics show that there are over 66% of adults online in America who are connected to media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and many more.

Leo: Yea I agree. There are always people constantly updating information on the internet about the society, personal issues, politics, sport, etc.

Michael: Also Facebook has 845 million active users, which portrays our society’s social dependency. There’s also Twitter that has 127 million active users. Basically, there’s just so many different social media platforms that redefines what is smart and the way we achieve information.

Leo: In order to keep up with the social trend, you have to join the bandwagon. For example, if you don’t have Facebook, you’re out of the loop and may have less social awareness.

Michael: However, there are also many negative aspects of the online media platforms, because the range of knowledge retained from the social media is very limited. And I feel like people have lost the desire to know and seek more deeply into the issues that society faces in this modern world compared to how people have obtained information in the past.

Leo: [nods head] Also, TV brings in advertisement. On average, advertisement lasts for about thirty seconds. In order to persuade and attract the consumer, advertisements briefly portray their product and/or purpose through the conventions of ethos, logos, and pathos; the marketing world knows exactly how to appeal to the consumers to catch their attention in an instant.

Michael: Yeah,  It’s quick and efficient. The marketing and advertising world has definitely grown in this generation. Do you think that these advertisements prove that this modern world portrays a new definition of success?

Leo: Yes, I think it really proves that people have to be brief and explain things to the point in order to gain success and to survive in this world. Moreover, gaining information at twitch speed and multitasking have become vital skills in our lives; I believe that the standards in this modern world are not only being raised, but also changing to fit into the modern world.

Michael: This modern world is really all about technology. It is constantly changing and redefining what is smart, what is successful, and what is necessary.

Together: What do you think?

Just a visual form of the transcript that we created for our Real Talk Video Discussion. Seeing the transcript and hearing it from the video provide different impacts to the aspect of the discussion. The transcript seems very formal and organized, but the when hearing it in the video, the viewer might realize that the discussion is in the form of a daily conversation.

The Rhetoric of Video Games

Animal Crossing: A Role-Playing Game where you are an animal that meets multiple other animal characters in a town and can do various activities.

The rhetorical devices used in Animal Crossing are the found within the dialogue and animations of the animal characters; the dialogue and animations are pathos because they make the gamer experience the joys and fun of living with a bunch of friends and interacting with them by playing mini games and other various activities.

Grand Theft Auto IV: An open world action-adventure game where you have the ability to complete missions. You have the choice of being the good or the bad guy.

The violent scenes of drug busts, car races, and gang fights display the rhetoric that this game brings by giving the gamer a emotional sense of the intense rush of action.

Bully: A role-playing game where you are a teenage student at a private institute that rebels against the rules that the school has installed.

The rush of adrenaline that comes with playing this game when avoiding getting caught for truancy and vandalism and all the other mischievous things that can be done give the gamer emotional appeal.

McDonald's VideoGame: A game where you can explore and discover many things about McDonald that most consumers don't know about the entire process and structure of the company.

In this game, the logos and ethos are very obviously displayed through all the transactions and decisions that need to be made with money and products. And the company that created the game have credentials that allow the gamer to believe that what they are playing is for the most part the truth about McDonald.

On Bullshit by Harry Frankfurt

Today in class, we explained and discussed Harry G. Frankfurt's book, On Bullshit. Frankfurt talks about a different kind of "bullshit" that is not associated with the slang definition of unfair, but instead the "bullshit" that Frankfurt mentions in his book is information or something presented that is given with no effort and made up, but not necessarily a lie or fake. The reason why Frankfurt describes this concept is because some people misinterpret the idea of "bullshit". When people are giving "bullshit", they are for the most part saying something that has no proof or credential of being true, but the things that people say as "bullshit" could still possibly be true.

For example, if an essay is due in about an hour and that person has not even started on it, then the person writing the essay will most likely "bullshit" their essay. In doing so, he will be writing things that first come into his mind and try to make the essay sound true and intellectual based on his own prior knowledge of the topic; his lack of time causes him to have to give his poorest effort and time into the essay, but based on his prior knowledge of the topic, he could possibly be saying and explaining certain ideas that actually are logical and true.

Real Talk

"In Jackson's article it says, "we are adapting to a new world, but in doing so, are we redefining 'smart' to mostly mean twitch speed, multitasking, and bullet points?" Jackson brings up an interesting point that as the Earth is changing so is our view of what we believe is going to be successful and what will survive in the constantly changing world. Is the standards and definition of being successful and smart changing as the world is changing? Are the standards being raised or are they being changed completely?"


This is the topic that Leo and I discussed and did our Real Talk Video Assignment. We both, for the most part, agreed that in this new modern world we are redefining 'smart' to mostly mean twitch speed, multitasking, and bullet points. We also believe that in order to be successful and to survive in most of the jobs in this world, people have to adapt to the constantly changing world and must complete certain tasks and errands quickly and efficiently to keep up with the competition and definition of a successful worker; the definition is changing as the world and its technology improves and raises the standards of how fast and efficiently work can be accomplished.

We talked about the speedy aspect of advertisements, cellphones, and the world wide web. The approximately thirty second advertisements of commercials quickly explain the product and its purpose in a way that catches the viewer's attention and persuades them into buying certain products. The quick aspect of it allows the people in this world to keep their attention, yet efficiently accomplishes the company's goal to sell their products.

Cellphones have completely changed how this modern world operates because the quick and instant communication that it provides allows information to travel, which speeds up production and efficiency within companies and any other organizations around the world. Also, the cellphone allows for different communities and countries to interact at an instant.

The Internet has been one of the most world changing creations that has also completely changed how the whole world functions. Similarly to the cellphone, the Internet has many instant search engines and social media sites allow communication and information to be spread in an instant all around the world.

TEDTalk: Reality is Broken

    VS










The TEDTalk Video versus the Reality is Broken book contains many different rhetoric devices/aspects that inform and persuade the audience/reader of Jane McGonigal's idea of using games to make the world a better place. The idea sounds farfetched now, but Jane McGonigal explains that games could be made to focus on the problems in our world and to virtually fix and solve those problems with many creative and innovative thinkers/gamers.

The TEDTalk Video allows the audience and viewers to immediately see Jane McGonigal's passion for her plan to solve the problems around our world. The audience can see the multimodal examples that she prepares for each of her sessions. For example, she includes videos, images, and rhetorical questions that intrigues the curiosity of the audience and persuades them to believe that games can make a huge impact on the world and its problems.

The Reality is Broken book on the other hand gives a different impact and impression on the readers than the people that see Jane McGonigal speak about her idea. The book contains all of McGonigal's organized thoughts and ideas that allow the reader to absorb and learn about each game and their goals in full detail. The book only contains written text and possibly a few images that does not give various multimodal examples.