Robert

Robert's How to Say Nothing in 500 Words was an exploration into the obvious. Maybe it's just me, but when I read the initial paper the student wrote, I thought to myself “wow, what a crappy paper”, and I wasn't surprised when the instructor gave him a D. Most of his advice is obvious to me, as I had been taught most of this since 8^th grade, but maybe I can understand that it may had been of value back in the 50's when he wrote it. How he wrote it, though, was brilliant. He illustrates an average writer's thought process (and also an average procrastinator) perfectly. The piece felt not at all like a self-help piece for most of it, and when it did, it wasn't as bad as many writer's guides I've read. All in all, the piece was okay, but not spectacular by any means.

Robert

Robert's How to Say Nothing in 500 Words was an exploration into the obvious. Maybe it's just me, but when I read the initial paper the student wrote, I thought to myself “wow, what a crappy paper”, and I wasn't surprised when the instructor gave him a D. Most of his advice is obvious to me, as I had been taught most of this since 8^th grade, but maybe I can understand that it may had been of value back in the 50's when he wrote it. How he wrote it, though, was brilliant. He illustrates an average writer's thought process (and also an average procrastinator) perfectly. The piece felt not at all like a self-help piece for most of it, and when it did, it wasn't as bad as many writer's guides I've read. All in all, the piece was okay, but not spectacular by any means.

Something Borrowed Response

In Something Borrowed, Gladwell analyses culture and when is okay and not okay to copy and sample other's works and call it your own. Citing instances in history such as the Beastie Boys sampling a short clip from a larger flute piece to make a beat, as well as a play script being pretty much a carbon copy of an author's book, and the author noticed it right away. Gladwell poses the question: "Does an author's words belong to the author?", and the answer is tricky, as in some instances, there isn't a clear distinction between having a physical sense of owning the words,like, they are mine and you can't take them, versus a more spiritual look at owning the words, such as I said them, so they are mine in that context.

I feel that this piece sees the whole issue and addresses it all, especially the part about influence and inspirational which sometimes leads to a close resemblance. However, I believe that there is a line that is crossed from borrowing to stealing, especially if it is on a word for word or idea for idea basis. To be honest, I didn't really read this whole thing, but I got the jist of it. I'm sitting on the first floor of College Library and class is in less than a half hour, so I don't really have time to really analyse the whole piece in great detail, but I can tell that I do indeed like this piece and the way it is presented, and how the a majority of the piece seems to be told like a narrative.