Humbug! Hoaxes in Literature and Culture.

In my revision of paper 1 I placed a lot of attention on embedding my quotes from the article correctly, so that they would flow easily into the sentences. In order to do this I used connective phrases like “…by pointing out…” and then stating the quote, so that it made sense as a complete sentence. I also made use of phrases like “…this can be seen in the statement…”.

Furthermore in my revision, I noticed that there were paragraphs that were not well placed within my analysis, therefore I rearranged a few points, placing points regarding credibility one after the next, such as the ‘scientists’ and ‘spokesperson’ paragraphs. I also removed my paragraph on the analysis of the structure of the article from the end of my analysis and placed it at the beginning after my paragraph discussing the audience that the article is aimed at. I placed them together as I felt that they spoke more on the general techniques and overlook of the article as opposed to the body of my analysis which gives more in-depth reading and focuses on themes relating to each other.

When revising my first paper, I first did a read through it and edited any big things that stood out to me. After I did that I spent time reading each paragraph one by one, and paid close attention to the evidence I incorporated and tried to make them more specific and portray them more effectively. One example is the change I made in my second paragraph from “Also logos is present in the text when it describes how it took the hunters months of waiting in order to catch the creature; the authors describing it as a long process makes the hoax seem more possible and convincing that the loch ness monster was actually caught” to the edited version “The text increases believability when it stated “(t)he hunters, who had been lying in wait for months, succeeded in capturing the monster”; the authors made the process of capturing the creature as long and tedious, the readers will be more compelled in believing this hoax when it seems that the process took a long period of patience and dedication in finding the creature similarly to how most scientific discoveries happen.” After I looked at the order in which I placed my evidence within each paragraph and altered it so it would flow together better and become more organized in their order of placement.

The first time that I looked at my first paper since I wrote it was this weekend. Obviously, the form I turned in was the best work that I could do at the time that I wrote it, but having re-read it, I found so many poorly worded sentences and realized that rather than me not proofreading carefully, the “stupid mistakes” and misworded sentences were simply a result of my high school writing style. That paper had been written in the style with words that I found useful, descriptive, and persuasive in high school, but now feel less beneficial to my arguments. The changes I made during my first revision were mostly to the sentence structure and wording. I found a couple of sentences that were confusing due to the organization and structure that the sentence was written, and changed that for many sentences.

“Perhaps some people would simply want to say they tried this seemingly irrational flavor of Oreo found in the “Wreckless Eating” videos; just as they did in “Will it Cookie,” the show’s creators construct unlikely concoctions in order to attract attention from viewers. ”

changed to this:

“The creators of the show, “Wreckless Eating” constructed unlikely concoctions in order to attract attention from viewers, most of whom would likely try the sweet sandwich to claim that they tried the irrational flavor of Oreo, as presented in  the channel’s show, “Will It Cookie”.

Along with the restructuring, I chose stronger words to get my points across. For example, in my first body paragraph, I changed the sentence to, “The apparent chaos introduced by the viral photo…,” rather than using the word brought in place of introduced. In looking ahead at the changes I’d like to make, I realized that I’d like to incorporate more in regards to the motive of the photo-releaser and how the intentions may have even been apparent through the video itself.

When I started to revise my paper, I looked over the comments I received as a benchmark for what I should change. Coincidentally, what needed the most work was my incorporation of evidence. I took the ideas we discussed last class about how to lead up to and away from evidence and applied it to my paper. Here is an example:

Old Paper: Given that the video acts as a hoax perpetuating mechanism, the creator of the video applies standard techniques found in sports reporting to express T’eo’s story in a credible and authoritative way. Like other sports documentaries, the video talks about the impact of an outside event, the death of T’eo’s girlfriend, on his play. It cites his statistics and specific plays to follow the basic formula for an interesting sports report, making the video appear to contain authentic information. In the video, T’eo expresses Lennay’s impact on him when he says, “I literally felt the wind after every play I made. I said that’s for you”. While his actions benefited from the death of Lennay, she still tricked him into feeling and acting a certain way while he played football.

New Paper: Given that the video acts as a hoax perpetuating mechanism, the creator of the video applies standard techniques found in sports reporting to express T’eo’s story in a credible and authoritative way. Like other sports documentaries, the video talks about the impact of an outside event, the death of T’eo’s girlfriend, on his play. It cites his statistics and specific plays to follow the basic formula for an interesting sports report, making the video appear to contain authentic information. In the video, T’eo expresses Lennay’s impact on him when he says, “I literally felt the wind after every play I made. I said that’s for you” (Wojciechowski). He benefited from Lennay’s death despite her tricking him into feeling and acting a certain way while he played football.

The new version flows better while still incorporating a strong argument. I plan to expand my skills on the research paper by applying effective quote integration throughout the entire essay.

I chose an article that I found online after searching keywords such as “Margaret Keane” and “Walter Keane.” I decided that a good place to start with my research paper would be to collect as much background information as possible, building a strong understanding of the lives within my hoax.

This article gives an overview of the lives of Margaret and Walter Keane, and a brief summary of the hoax itself. It also incorporates elements from the film that I will be using as one of my main sources, Tim Burton’s Big Eyes.

However, one of the main reasons this article proved to be important to my research question was due to the fact that it addressed the question of whether or not Margaret’s reveal as the true artist hindered the success of her paintings. The answer to this question, that her paintings actually became more valuable and coveted by current owners, will adapt my argument.

The fact that Margaret was a woman as opposed to a man seemed to have no effect on art lovers, despite what her husband had told her. So I now will ask the question, did Margaret’s perception of the world’s feelings towards woman have an effect on how she perceived herself as an artist? Did this help aid Walter Keane in manipulating his wife to allowing him to take the credit for her paintings?

Stallings, Tyler. “Melancholy-Pop: ‘Big Eyes’ Screenwriters Discuss Art,  Commerce, and Margaret Keane.” KCETlink. Drew Tewksbury, 26 Jan. 2015. Web. 8 Nov. 2015.

After revising my first paper, I realized editing was a long process and it was much more difficult than I expected. As I moved through my essay, I kept seeing flaws about its organization and syntax. In order to fix this, I had to go through each body paragraph individually and decide if it was logically organized and whether there was a more effective way to place my evidence. Additionally, I had to make sure all the transitions flowed and each piece of evidence was followed by a proper amount of analysis. After this long process, I was able to improve a lot of the organizational aspects and insert some more clarity on certain topics. For example, I added more background on US Chinese relations during the mid-nineteenth century regarding the “…anti-Chinese sentiment…” and “…previous prejudices…” in order to clarify the target audience and how the Denver writers used these views to their advantage (Kwok 2). Additionally, I added smoother transitions such as “….then the authors further their story by….” in my second paragraph so there was a more logical flow of evidence (2). Not only did transitions help the progression of thoughts, but I added more evidence from the texts to clarify some of the claims I had in my essay. Lastly, I added in-text citations and a works cited page at the end to ensure credit was given to the sources I used. Overall, I thought the revision did improve the organization of my arguments and smooth out many transitional elements which made the paper made stronger.

I began revising my paper by improving my thesis and including introductory information more relevant to my topic. My initial thesis did not summarize the main theme of my paper and only included the terms “ethos, pathos, and logos,” which were actually used in the wrong context. I improved my thesis by stating specific devices, “such as scientific jargon, gruesome details, and direct accounts,” that enabled Poe to “successfully turn a work of fiction into a realistic scientific report that many people received with not only fear but also wonder.” My information in my initial introductory paragraph was also too general for the topic of my paper; I had included details about the history of the hoax rather than concentrating on a rhetorical analysis of Poe’s short story. As a result, I removed the general information and replaced it with a short summary of “The Case of the Death of M. Valdemar.”

I also edited my three main body paragraphs and included better integration and more detailed analysis of the quotes. Instead of just summarizing the main point of the quote, I tried to make some conclusions on not only how it made the story more effective but also how the audience might have been affected. In my first body paragraph I changed my audience to include both individuals “interested in scientific reports but also those interested in Poe’s narratives just for leisure.” Therefore, I could use the more diverse audience to support my claim that “some people may not have been familiar with the term “articulo mortis,” giving Poe an opportunity to use the narrator’s language to take advantage of his general, less educated audience and gain credibility.”  In my third body paragraph, I argue the fact that the narrator’s recount of M. Valdemar’s death cannot be proven by medical experts and the general public is most likely “too surprised to think about the logic behind the medical actuality of the situation.” By describing a wider audience, I was able to provide more thorough reasoning for Poe’s inclusion of specific information and detail.

Blog post (by Thursday at 8am) Find an illuminating secondary source for your research question. Explain where you found it, what search terms got you there, and why you’ve chosen this one as opposed to others. Summarize your source and explain how it changes how you are approaching your topic. Provide a proper citation for your source.

I discovered the article entitled “The Neuroscience of Inception” while searching on Google Scholar by simply typing the words “Inception movie.” Not only does this source provide me with a critique of the film, it delves into the science behind why Inception was such a “cool” movie to watch in theaters. This source focuses primarily on the science behind the special effects by taking a unique stance: “Inception is about making movies, and cinema is the shared dream that truly interests the director.” The writer highlights the  the neurophysiological process of losing oneself in a movie by pointing out that Inception tries to collapse the already thin distinction between dreaming and movie-watching. This makes me wonder more about the director’s cinematography and the neuroscience involved in the movie watching experience. Gathering more information about the psychology of movie watching in addition to the psychology of dreams would allow me to analyze how the director successfully made us believe that Cobb had planted an idea in someone else’s mind.

Lehrer, Jonah. “The Neuroscience of Inception.” (2010).

Updated Citation:

Lehrer, Jonah. The Neuroscience of Inception. N.p.: Wired Magazine, 26 July 2010. Doc.

Blog post (by Thursday at 8am): Suggest three possible research questions about the subject of your final paper.

1. How does one successfully plant an idea in someone else’s mind? Why is this considered a “crime”?
2. How does the director distinguish between reality and science fiction?
3. Has science advanced far enough to allow us to control the dream state? What is the relationship between movie watching and dreaming?

After typing “psychology in horror movies” into google scholar, I eventually found this paper entitled “The Lure of Horror”. This source is a psychological essay published by the British Psychological Society on the attraction of horror movies. I decided to use this source because it gives a very comprehensive analysis of potential causes of horror in the movie Paranormal Activity by citing a myriad of different experiments done on this topic. From this, it is a gateway to finding more sources to potentially use. Furthermore, there is a good mix of observational analyses and hard core neuroscience, in contrast to pure psychological analysis as many of the other sources were. These conclusions were along the lines of, horror films allowing us to “rehearse” similar scenarios and release dopamine in order to learn from it. The source delves into why horror movies are appealing even though they are unpleasant, what makes horror movies scary in terms of psychological studies and in terms of brain imaging studies. It changes how I am approaching the topic because I feel as if I should incorporate more psychological analysis in my analysis of Paranormal Activity, as these studies are also important in synthesizing a conclusion for the movie.

Jarrett, Christian. “The Lure of Horror.” The Lure of Horror. The British Psychological Society, 1 Nov. 2011. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.

Upon an initial analysis of Johnathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, I found myself wondering who he intended as his audience. Luckily, I found a scholarly source which provides that analysis for me. The essay “Have you Eaten Yet? the Reader in A Modest Proposal” by Robert Phiddian addresses the issue of the audience in Swift’s work. Phiddian examines Swifts intentions with his proposal in terms of its effectiveness. He claims that “The Modest Proposal is simply too aggressively alienating to be a successful as a hoax” and offers that we stop viewing at as such (Phiddian 605). He makes a bold claim about the nature of Swifts proposal which, when put into conversation with my other sources, will be very enlightening.

I found this source using Google Scholar. Unfortunately, I don’t remember which terms I used to find it but Google ultimately led me to this JStore article. I chose to use this source because it makes arguments about Swift’s rhetorical position which is something we have discussed at length in class.

MLA Citation:

Phiddian, Robert. “Have You Eaten Yet? the Reader in A Modest Proposal”. Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 36.3 (1996): 603–621. Web.