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How have your experiences with revisions changed the way you view youre own writing and style?

Coming into this class, all I really knew about writing papers was what I had learned in high school and before. Now that this year is coming to an end and I have written close to ten essays in these past two semesters alone, I realize that writing a college essay is extremely different than writing essays in high school and junior high. Sure, there are still the basics--intro, the body, and the conclusion, but in this class I have learned so many things about writing an esay in general and especially on how to edit and revise it.
Usually, when I would revise an essay, I would edit the grammar, check for spelling mistakes, and things like the wording of each sentences. There were many things that my English Professor had taught us to use when revising an essay. For example, the writers workshops, having other people speculate and revise your paper along with the professor, really helps you get more ideas and helps you know what you need to change. After all of these and all of the feedback I had recieved, I do now know what my writing needs to impove on. And I look at my writing as more scholary, even though its nothing close, but more professional than how it was when I started the year out.

Norman Borlaug's Article

In the article that we were given, Norman Borlaug talks about the controversy involving food and biotechnology. This topic is a big issue today and there are two main points to it. The side that is for it argues that creating biotechnology into the countries food system will give the world enough food to keep the population that has a non-stop growing rate alive. Other arguments they have is that biotechnology helps in the medical world with breakthroughs for health issues. Scientists believe it is a good thing because they have hopes for using it to increase farming techniques and things such as fertlizer and seeds to make them grow in a more effiecient way. This all can lead to less starvation around the world.
The people that argue that this biotechnology is not such a good thing believe that food was meant to not be messed with, you will find that most of these people would be organic or raw food eaters. Like in Omnivore's Dilemma we learned that messing with the orgininal make up of our food is not only unethical but unhealthy and wrong. It can in the end hurt our bodies most think. Some argue that since this is a relative new thing we do not know the long term side affects which makes people believe that it is something that can eventually kill people who eat it. Not like they know this for sure but biotechnology could go either way with the good and the bad.

Chapter 15, 18, 19, & 20

From the reading in chapter 15 of Omnivores Dilemma Michael Pollan had decided that he wanted to cook a meal from foods that were only from hunting and gathering, and that were grown by himself. By doing this he can realize how it felt to be in the nomadic era and what it would be like if he didn't purchase anything from stores that could be contaminated, he knows exactly where the food hes cooking is coming from. This was something he had never usually done because of his mother frightening him from eating foods in the woods saying they were poisonous or lead to him dying. This is something that people in the past had to learn from experience, because when we didn't have grocery stores people had to find out which plants and berries were okay to eat and which were poisonous on their own. Leaving his fears behind pollan does this for himself and cooks a real meal on his own.
Pollan dicusses that this way of eating could go either way, there is a perspective that says what is the point in going to all this trouble for a meal?, and the perspective of this is the best way to eat. One strong point Pollan points out in this is life might be more chaotic this way and there might not be enough food this way. In my point of view I believe that people should and can do both. My dad, grandma, and other family members have their own gardens in their yards that we cook vegetables, fruits, and such in to have in our meals with the food from the grocery store. Some still might be against this but I believe it is a good way to live your life in a healthy and cheaper enviornment.

chapter 16 and 17

In Chapter 16 of Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, he discusses different tastes, appetite cravings, and cooking styles and all about the communities preference of food and how special it is to the area. Michael has many different opinions on food, obviously. And he believes things like immigrants attempt to create a culture here is a failure. I completely dissagree with this. I believe that what immigrants bring to the table can be complete assumulations of their home town. The idea that meals can bring back culture is one major thing that immigrants do these days.
In Chapter 17 Pollan talks about the ethics that people have of eating animals. From the book I get the view that I have always had, yet from things like Food Inc. that we watched in class I believe that it gives me a view that eating animals is wrong and seeing what is done to them makes it hard to eat meat, even when I am a natural meat eater. I wish that I could say that the meat companies should change their ways and they should not hurt the animals, but how could that possibly happen with all the demands, mine included. This industry is so sad, and it is sad how things are handled, but nothing really can be done to help it improve.

Chapters 8 10 11 Omnivores Dilemma

In this section of the required reading of Omnivore's Dilemma, the author Pollan tells of how he encounters his experience with what he says is a beyond organic famer named Joel Salatin. Joel classifies himself as a so called grass farmer. All that this means, or what Joel depicts a grass farmer exactly is is that every animal that he raises on the farm lives off the grass that is on his land only.
Salatin shows pollan the method of how he grows the grass and letting the cows and other animals live and graze on it. As I read this I came to realize how the whole process is really self involved, and seems to work very well. It is as they said all organic, and that means there are no fertilizers involved which makes it cheaper and healthier. Joel is very lucky because many other larger farmers can not do this because of their size and their need to industrialize and produce so much money. The entire organic process seems very difficult, and I can say that from the reading I did not follow exactly how it works. Yet, I do see why it is done. It is natural, and makes you appreciate the organic process more since it takes so much more than the industrial farming process.

Omnivore's Dilemma ch 12-13

In the reading of Michael Pollen, there are a ton of things uncovered. In chapter twelve, he discusses how he learned the difference between dealing with small animals on a farm, such as chickens, and larger animals, such as cows. What he learned was that because of government regulations, only small animals were able to be slaughtered. There are several reasons to this as well as the fact that slaughtering must be done in the eye of the government. I do agree with the statement that animals only should be slaughtered in the governments rule so farmers do not do anything illegal. I also do agree with the fact that large animals should not be slaughtered. This is mostly because of the fact that I believe they have higher purposes.

In the next chapter of the Omnivore’s Dilemma, it shows the inside scoop to farmers markets. The controversial issue here is the fact that some farmers do not believe this is a good way to sell their products, that they indeed lose money this way. When farmers sell their products to food companies and that is more reliable and definitely a better wager. Every farmers market I have been to from where I am from is more of something you go to once a week to get your fresh vegetables and fruits for the weekend. And when I go whether I am with my family or my friends or boyfriend, it is mostly just to go and experience it, I never find myself being a big spender there. For example in the summer my boyfriend and I try and make a few trips down to the Pike Place Market, and for me, since this is where I am from, I do not go to buy tourist type things or jewelry. All I usually end up buying there, and in Kirkland, Redmond, and Bellevue, is a bouquet of flowers and some fruit. I encourage farmers to keep doing markets, but it is understandable some do not because of the money issue.

Response one 1-25-10

In the readings of the Omnivore's Dilemma, there was something that stood out to me that I was previously unaware of. Farming might be one of the toughest jobs in the United States. Reading about George Naylor's experience as a farmer makes jobs I would never want, look extremely easy. From what I read, it seems that George was brough up knowing that he was going to run the farm when his father was gone. Basically, his career was already set up for him before he had the opportuniry to explore what he really wanted to do in life. That is how farming works I guess, it is a family business. And might I add, not one that, so to speak, 'pays the bills'.
Reading about George's troubles as a farmer is ever hard to hear about. Whether the economy is bad, meaning the demand for corn goes down, or the competitive neighbors have the more high tech gear, leading them into bankruptcy, or even just being able to feed the family and pay the bills, farming is not an easy job. As time goes on, no one knows what is going to happen with the economy or supply and demand for products, for farmers this means trouble. If I could describe farming in one work from what I have read in this book, it would be unpredictable. There are so many variable to take into account,such as the weather, the economy, tools, ect., I would say it is not a very stable job, especially for a family, it is not something that you can depend on to live off of. Farming is definitely a tough job which has a lot of issues that go along with it.