Chapter 8, Exemplification
Kelila Fitch-Cook
2/10/2016
Wow. This chapter took a while for me to get through, not only due to the length but also because I found the instructive matter to be frivolous for the most part. I was rolling my eyes at the majority of the questions posed because even though they were obviously intended to be thought-provoking, the answers to a lot of them seemed, to me, self-evident. I'll admit, my irritation may be due in large part to my current state of nicotine withdrawal, but I can't say for sure.
I did enjoy the writings themselves for the most part, though. I particularly enjoyed the essay by Judith Ortiz Cofer titled "The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria". I think she eloquates her point firmly yet kindly, gently ushering her reader towards a greater awareness. Though I am a white woman myself and cannot personally relate to the experiences of Latin women in this country, I can relate to the experience of people thinking their offensive generalizations are harmless and sometimes even flattering. The essay I liked the least was the piece by Farhad Manjoo titled "No, I Do Not Want to Pet Your Dog". This is not because I disagreed with his argument, but his tone was somewhat confusing. The book did ask at least one pertinent question which was "How would you describe the tone these words create? Respectful? insulting? Sarcastic? Something else?" (228). Well, I'm not sure. It feels sarcastic, but his platform is quite straight-forward. I"m not sure if he was trying to be funny or not. In fact, he ended up sounding quite condescending which ultimately led me to view the whole thing as an obnoxious, un-engaging rant. Ugh.
Overall, I enjoyed the readings and I do admit that the initial content and description of what exemplification is is thorough and straight-forward, as per usual from these authors. I did not, though, find it particularly enlightening for myself because, to me, it seems like an intuitive assumption that, yes, writing is boring and vague without description and examples to support content. But again, I may just be in a mood.
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