Rhetorical Blog #2

Dax Moore
Amanda Irvin
ENGL 10803
09/22/09

Rhetorical Blog #2

These two essays were ridiculously sterile. I had the worst time getting through page after page of hard fact. These essays put the literary gun into the mouth of voice and passion and pulled the trigger. There is nothing more boring than an essay with a forced writer. It seems as if these two authors were forced to grow up too fast and left some of their creativity behind. The vanity of a heartless dragon comes through these essays and sweeps away with that maiden of sentiment and leaves nothing but the cold ruins of history.

The essay about the tattoos is very intriguing at face value. I'm sure that there comes a point in everyone's life in which they must decide whether or not to get a tattoo. I have gone through these moments and still struggle with the battle. So much feeling goes into marking your body. There are tattoos that bring people to tears, not because of the pain, but because of the memory that the portrait inlaid in their skin brings. The idea of a tattoo itself is extremely emotional. A story, a personal experience, is engraved onto a person's body. This is not engraved into steel or stone, but the only thing that is eternal to a person's life, their temple. Religious signs, portraits of lost loved ones, names of children, mottoes encircling the very essence of a person's being are etched into their skin to be there forever. The lack of feeling and over-usage of quotes in this essay is appalling and should be insulting to most people adorned with tattoos. It is my belief that to even quote the text of this lack of a discovery essay would be weakening and insulting to my work. This woman should not be suggesting herself as an avid tattoo activist. She merely glosses over the fact that a certain passage from a book insults her. She never goes beyond that word, insult. On such a topic that contains such emotion, she should be embarrassed to be so devoid.

The second reading about the Starbucks coffee did little more than the first. For such a seemingly heart filled memory that lead her to a life-long addiction to caffeine product from a particular dealer, she did very little elaboration on her inner monologue. All she gave was cold hard fact about the inner workings of a huge corporation. Seeing as she is not Michael Moore, her pleas were less than interesting. Once again, to use quotes from such a lack of a paper would be absolutely demeaning to my own. This paper made me feel virtually nothing but anger at the absolute incompetence of people.

There is more to a research essay than cold hard fact and a simple argument. There is a rhythm and a flow to research. Almost as a narrative, the voice in a research paper should be used to convey the emotion caught in the subject. The vocabulary should portray the author's true feelings. Save sterility for hospitals and bathrooms.