Eng 112

Data is Beautiful Journal (Journal #4)

Go to YouTube and search “Data is Beautiful”. This is the address of the channel you are searching for:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkWbqlDAyJh2n8DN5X6NZyg/featured

At last count, the channel posts 58 videos, all using graphs to show trends over recent times. Click on “Videos” to see them all. “Most popular” and “Best selling” are two of the most popular types of videos. At least one video only predicts future trends based on current analysis; do not pick that video for Journal #4. Pick any video from “Data is Beautiful” that shows trends that have already occurred over recent times. Which one will you pick? That counts as 1 source for Journal #4, otherwise known as the Analysis journal.

Then use Google or other research that studies, explains, or otherwise analyzes what the “Data is Beautiful” video indicates. Why did something less popular become more popular? When did something very popular begin to be replaced? With this additional research, search for who is responsible for these particular trends and attempt to give historical context that analyzes these changes. Remember that after Journal #1, all Eng 112 essays need to mention and to at least minimally be about a person you name.

Regarding Short Folder rule #11, remember that the title of a YouTube video to be listed on the Works Cited page is what is directly beneath the video on that page. If you list YouTube in Short Folder rule #11, italicize it. “Data is Beautiful” does not fit into Short Folder rule #11.

Like all journals, this essay should be 300-500 words and use 2-4 sources. Follow The Short Folder, not the APA Folder.

This document shows formatting while covering some instructions. Then an actual Journal #1, which follows those instructions, is included.

Centered, Creative Title, Short Folder Rule #1

TAB to indent each paragraph. All essays, unlike an Abstract or an Annotated Bibliography or a Discussion Board post, must have multiple indented paragraphs. The word count must be 300-500 words. Any header information you choose to include does not count as part of the 300-500 word count. The

Works Cited

page, which of course must be included for any essay in our class, does not count for the 300-500 word count either. In Eng 112, students don’t have to write basic or “starter” sentences. Whether it is Journal #1 about a personal choice or Journal #2 about a list of controversial Supreme Court decisions in recent years, students should not write basic starters such as, “I am choosing to write about this for our class because …” and “It is an important issue people have been talking about for a long time.”

In the process of writing any essay in English 112, I want students to be formal. Writing is many times more formal than talking, yet students mistakenly build habits in which they start sentences with “Well,” “Yes,” and “No” and use language more appropriate for a friendly conversation, including the use of fragments. While all essays should include at least one quote, probably from research, do not write as if having a conversation with the reader. The reader is an abstract notion, meaning anybody in any place at any time, not just the teacher who gives out assignments.

Journal #1had to be about a personal choice, big or small, that was meant to achieve a standard that perhaps it failed to do. No matter what essay is being assigned or written in this class, it has to be research. Students have to perform research, document that research, and therefore include MLA parentheses and Works Cited pages. Please keep reading this document to see an example of Journal #1. It could not be written without referencing The Short Folder and Essay Rules; both are here in Moodle and must be read and consulted for better essays. That is why many times in most responses to Journal #1, I made comments like “follow Short Folder #4” or “Short Folder #11 needed”. Too many students, it would seem, ignored reading the required documents like The Short Folder before writing Journal #1 or proofreading the MLA standards. Please be sure to read and follow The Short Folder for Journal #2, which includes Short Folder rules #9 and #10 because of the small chance that students use a book for research in the class. Always follow the “no you” rule.

Works Cited

“Two to Four Sources Always Needed for a Journal, Never Just One.” Date of your Research

www.indentthesecondlineofentriesanduseABCorderforthelisting.com

“What is the Title of the Web Address source used?” Date of your Research

www.indentthesecondlineofentriesanduseABCorderforthelisting.com

The Humble Hobby

I moved my g2 pawn up to the g4 square. It was not protected, so the black knight moved from f6 with impunity and I was down a pawn. My e3 bishop was next, but I moved to protect that square from the knight with my queen. What I did not realize from lack of foresight was that after the black knight took e3, my queen would have to occupy a square directly in front of my king. I was two moves away from losing my queen and being down two pieces. It was another level four chess game against the computer that I was going to lose, and it was going to take just ten minutes. Level four is what I could call “my level” on a scale from one to ten. I win approximately half the time and almost never defeat level five.

Magnus Carlsen is the world’s best chess player and has been since he was 19 years old ten years ago. The Norwegian won the online tournament he organized, the Magnus Carlsen Chess Tour, on August 20, 2020, playing close matches against Hikaru Nakamura before the largest viewership in chess history, nearly 70 million people (Magnus Carlsen wins richest and most-watched). A very helpful YouTube channel posts move by move updates for these matches as well as historic matches from over 100 years ago; this and other channels include commentary and strategy. Even though one of the most dominant chess champions in history, Bobby Fischer, was insane, chess is an intellectual world unto its own, a private universe of mathematics and probability.

Even at my age I have decided to continue to play, although it correlates so directly with a decision to lose at a very humble level. In 2020 overall, Coronavirus has claimed over 800,00 lives and produced government mandates on where to stand and what to wear. In Portland, Oregon, protesters are burning Bibles. Shootings in New York City have risen 177% as the murder rate has spiked in many American cities. The city of Chicago “recorded 105 homicides and 584 shootings” in just the month of July (Chicago Homicides). As anyone with any access to any kind of media knows, 2020 has been one of the most troubled years in recent American history, and critics and know-it-alls in those media outlets seem to have found all of the culprits and to espouse all of the solutions. I will continue to play chess and therefore to lose so that when the game ends, I will be reminded that I am not all that qualified to tell other people how to think.

Works Cited

“Chicago Homicides and Shootings Rise Sharply in 2020.” 5Chicago. August 24, 2020

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicago-homicides-rose-by-139-percent-from-last-july-officials-say/2315318/

“Magnus Carlsen wins richest and most-watched online chess event ever.” CNN. August 21, 2020. August 24, 2020

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/21/sport/magnus-carlsen-chess-finale-victory-hikaru-nakamura-spt-intl/index.html

Eng/Hum

The Short Folder

1. Create creative titles

A paper on Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” should not be entitled Jack London or “To Build a Fire”. It should be entitled what you are saying about either or both, creatively, in the paper. This goes for rough drafts (when they occur for Major Grades later in the semester), for which you would have a “working title”. Please do not decorate your titles with CAPS, larger font, italics, quotation marks, or underlining. Your title should be the same font as the rest of the paper.

2. Commas go inside quotation marks

For example: When I read “The Red Convertible,”

NOT

When I read “The Red Convertible”,

3. Title treatment

Poems, articles, essays, and short stories go in quotation marks AND books, movies, newspapers, TV shows and magazines should be italicized or underlined. Nothing goes in quotation marks and with italics/underlines. Every paper we write will involve not only the title we are writing about collectively, but “Case Study” titles as well.

FOR MLA research protocol:

4. Periods go after – only after – parentheses.

5. Periods go after, but quotation marks go before the parentheses.

6. Space before writing your MLA parentheses.

7. No parentheses belong in a research paper except MLA parentheses.

8. Use keywords inside those parentheses. Entire titles and entire names are not necessary. When an author’s last name is available, always use that author’s last name as the keyword. When there can be confusion on the Works Cited page regarding your keyword, choose one that would avoid the confusion.

9. Page numbers are included in parentheses for sources with page numbers.

10. Here is the Works Cited model for a novel:

Works Cited

Theroux, Paul. Dark Star Safari. Boston: Mariner Books, 2004.

Author, last name first. Book Title. Place of Publishing Company: Publishing Company, Year of Publication. Indent second lines if they exist, which in the above example does not apply.

11. Here is a Works Cited model for an Internet page. Note that there are three (only 3) mandatory elements to be included for any web page, although some pages also have authors, sponsors, and dates of update:

Works Cited

“Title of Web Page in Quotation Marks.” Date of Your Research

www.fullwebaddresscopyandpasteisOK.govedu.cometc

Another example, this time of a “stacked” web page (one with an author, sponsor, and date of update):

Randerson, James. “Childish Superstition: Einstein’s letter makes view of religion relatively clear.” The Guardian. 13 May 2008. 5 Jan 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/12/peopleinscience.religion

12. Last word: Not only should your entire paper be in the same font, all of your Works Cited should be in the same font. When copying and pasting long web addresses on to your Works Cited page, the next step if necessary may be to highlight the whole paper and choose only one type and one size font.