the 7th blog assignment

In her essay, “The Horse Racing Industry: Issues and Reforms”, Christa Kurman proves her claim that Thoroughbred horses should be treated better, with series of evidences and information. She argues that the reality of the horse racing industry is nothing more than just a cruel abuse of horses and should be changed to create a more favorable environment for the horses. First, Kurman starts her essay off by presenting an example of Eight Belles’ accident at the Kentucky Derby. Then, she goes on with some facts on how body to leg ratio are tampered during breeding to make the horse run faster and look more beautiful, resulting in frequent chronic soreness and lower leg injuries. The claims are supported by statistical evidences in the next paragraph. The genetics of Thoroughbred horses are used to prove Kurman’s point that the genetic pool is artificially shrunk in order to keep only the horses with good traits in the pool. Problems are not only created from the horses themselves but also from the ground they are forced to run on. Horses are physically featured to run on fields covered in grass rather than on dirt tracks, which is responsible for a huge portion of physical injuries of horses. Kurman spends almost half of her essay on how jockeys use drugs that are both legal and illegal to boost up their horses’ performance despite the fact that the drugs have seriously detrimental consequences on the horses. She concludes with the fact that people do not pay the matter enough attention because they think of horses as nothing more than “objects of human amusement.” She refutes the claim by quoting Gandhi’s saying. I found this essay very persuasive. The logical sequence of information supports her claim effectively and the conclusion is precise, helping the readers to easily sum up what she has said.

Blog assignment #6

There are a lot of ways to use ideas from other source. Especially paraphrases and quotations are the ways that people often use. The reason why people use those kinds of ways when they write an essay is that they can make their essay more objective, accurate and informative.

In the essay “Running Up Hill: The Struggle of Student Athletes” by Zachary Tuthill, the writer also used lots of quotations and paraphrases to make his essay more effective and informative. As an example of quotations, he wrote that Perhaps more telling is the comment make by an NCAA Division I football player who said, “football practice and games are like hitting your head ten times against a brick wall and then you go try to study for a math exam” (Humphrey, Yow, and Bowden 41-42). One of the paraphrases that he used is that According to Stress in College Athletics, which details the causes of stress to those affiliated with college athletics, ninety-five percent of male athletes and eighty-five percent of female athletes found such factors as making up assignments missed because of games and practices as a primary cause of stress (Humphrey, Yow, and Bowden 41).

By using the ways such as quotations and paraphrases, the author can make his thesis more clear and vivid. The essay that I read is about difficulties that student athletes have faced and about the factors which are needed for them to overcome the difficulties. The examples that I have written in the second paragraph contribute to vividness of the essay. Specifically, those examples help readers feel how difficult student athletes perform both academic and athletic sides simultaneously. This means that using quotations and paraphrases help the essay’s overall meaning more clear and precise.

Blog Assignment #5

What is a history? More specifically, what is the purpose of a history? It is what people know about themselves, which means knowing about self’s true nature not about individual particularity. The way to know about self’s true nature is to see how people have done and lived since the past. According to this fact, a history has significance. A history must convey facts themselves objectively for the history to achieve the purpose of it. However, this has not been the case until now. This is because the purpose of the history has to be accomplished objectively but people who write the history is subjective.

In Korean history, Hongkyungrae’s disturbance happened. In Joseon Dynasty, many intellectuals were mass-produced as chances of education improved. The government hired more capable men through the state examination but it was not sufficient. Under this circumstance, Hong, kyungrae was aggrieved at not being hired and rose in revolt. He wanted to change the irrational social system and the farming population who agreed with him supported the revolt. They were put down finally, which meant he, Hongkyungrae, lost. Hongkyungrae’s disturbance can be an example that the history was written by the viewpoint of a winner.

If he finished the revolt successfully, it had not been recorded as the “disturbance”. If so, history textbooks would describe this “movement” more specifically and also call the event “movement” not “disturbance”

Blog assignment 4th

What is more important between fast English improvements and psychological stabilities? It would be different depending on people. All people who go to America for English improvement want to make good progress in English fluency as soon as possible. However, it is difficult because there are various kinds of limits which students studying abroad face. Frankly speaking, I really thought that Liu and I are under similar circumstances when I saw Liu’s story. Based on my experience, I think psychological stabilities are necessary for people to live.

When you think about opportunity cost, this problem is not a problem to decide which one is more important. If you value speedy English improvement and you do not get along with people from same country, you will feel more unstable. In the case that you are sick, there is nobody whom you can rely on. The more days you spend under this circumstance, the easier you will feel tired or frustrated. On the other hand, if you regard psychological stabilities more essential and you spend time with people who came from same country, you can stay in America more steadily. Even if you may improve your English more slowly, you can get courage from your peers.

Actually I have had a lot of problems that I had to cover because I am a transfer student from Korea so I have had so many things to deal with such as transferring credits and taking steps to enter into UD. At first, I really had hard time dealing with all the things. However, my Korean friends whom I got to know in UD helped me and I really felt stable. Isn’t it more important to live stably than to improve English fluency?


Excerpt : An excerpt is a short piece of writing or music which is taken from a larger piece.
Rumble : If a vehicle rumbles somewhere, it moves slowly forward while making a low continuous noise.
Stumble : If you stumble while you are reading aloud or speaking, you make a mistake, and have to pause before saying the words properly.

blog assignment3

E110 119 blog assignment 3rd

I was surprised. When I came to here at first, I felt considerable differences between Korean and American as for gestures. Korean actually do not use lots of gestures while they are communicating with other people. They usually think that it is too distracting to use a lot of gestures. On the other hand, American use gestures positively when they have conversation with someone. Their expression looks exaggerated from time to time to Korean. I think these differences which I felt result from characteristics of Korean. Most of Korean rarely show their feelings or thoughts and they show a marked trend toward hiding their feelings. For this reason, Korean I think do not often use gestures or expressions while American use gesture more positively.

All is not, however, different. We spent much time having a dinner or lunch with them after I came here and made friends who are American. Whenever I talk to them, they stare at my eyes as their presentation of concentration. Not only that, we express gladness whenever we meet or say good bye, we hug each other. By doing this, we present gladness or friendly feelings. These are the same cases with Korean. In my opinion, these kinds of basic presentations seem to be very similar.

Blog Assignment2

We all have our public selves and our private selves, and our cultures play a role in determining how much of our private selves we will show in public. How open are people in your culture about showing their personal sorrows and joys? Do people from your culture show their emotions quickly and easily, or do they hide their imotions, especially negativc emotions? Are people in your culture demonstrative of their affection for others in public? That is, do they kiss, hold hands, or hug in public?


Title: Korean have been changing.

“Humility is a virtue.”, Korean proverb says. In fact, this adage works in Korea. Most Korean are not boastful of their a strong point even though they think that those are their talents. Especially adults do not show their private selves. This inclination affects emotional expressions. For this reason, lots of Korean represent their sorrows or joys only to intimate people such as families or friends. In my case, sad feelings or affairs are not generally represented. This is because I think that bad feelings, thoughts or atmospheres affects the other man negatively. So I usually tell good things to my companions but as for bad ones, I do not tell or express.

The things, however, have been changed. Originally, Korean do not express their emotions easily. As time goes by, it comes to be easy to show their feelings, thoughts or themselves. In particular, youngsters do represent themselves positively. This is because people regard appealing themselves important in societies. They also express their feelings well. This disposition is conspicuous among the young and females. So you can see easily people hold hands or hug in public these days but it might be hard to see Korean kiss as Korean recognize kiss means loving each other.

E110 1st assignment

Title : Languages seem to be different depending on surroundings.

Languages are different up to circumstances. The language which my parents speak is totally different from that of mine although I was raised from my parents. Especially as for words that we use, those are not same each other so we sometimes have difficulties in having a conversation. Not only that, I also use different languages according to the situations.

In the case of my mother, languages that we use are almost same but sometimes she articulate dissimilarly. For instance, she pronounce “news” like “nius”. This is because she had heard “news” like that on TV while she was growing up. My father uses different endings of words and vocabularies from mine. For example, he speaks "해쑤까?" (heasuga) in an interrogative sentence. But most Korean speak "했습니까?" (heasmniga). Frankly speaking, there is a reason why this circumstance happens. My father was actually born in Jeju island. Jeju island is an islet which was located in South Korea. A dialect of Jeju island is famous for uniqueness so even Korean are not able to understand it frequently. For this reason, I should ask my father for explanation on what he is saying from time to time.

My languages are also affected by situations. For example, I used more formal endings of words like "했습니다"(heasmnida) when I give a presentation in front of many people. On the contrary, I use less formal endings of words like "했다" (heada) or "했어" (haeseo) when I have a conversation with my friends or families. Therefore, languages appear different according to a period, a place and situations.

about myself

Hi!
My name is Jang, Eunbee. I am from South Korea and major in Accounting at UD. Actually I had studied English linguistics and Persian in Korea but I changed my major into accounting as I came to here. This is because I want to work for a tobacco company and to make that kind of corporation.
My family member includes father, mother, younger sister and my pet "Bang-gu". I call them a darling child and I really love and miss them.
I like summer because I really love a bluish green color of trees or something. So I have enjoyed climbing a mountain and growing a plant.

Nice to meet you!