January 25, 2010

The author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan, starts off by describing how the corn we know today has come to be such an essential part of our daily lives. He goes on to describe how in today's society, one farmer produces enough food for 129 consumers. Pollan also describes how farming use to be before the inventions of hybrid corn, gasoline powered tractors and nitrogen enriched fertilizers. Pollan effectively demonstrated and made it clear to me how much technology has influenced the way in which we produce our food. No longer do we concentrate so much on the quality we are producing, as we do the quantity.

In They Say, I Say, the authors demonstrate ways in which to incorporate the critics views and ideas into your introductory statement in order to effectively state not only the direction of your arguments, as well as the reasoning behind them. Another useful tool that this chapter presented was how to use quotations in the right fashion. Rather than just having quotes placed in a "choppy" matter, this chapter taught me effective ways to place quotes so they flow with my sentence, and thus, better support my argument. This chapter proved to be very informative and has already affected my writing style in that it has helped to produce more effective and clear arguments.