Implicit and Explicit Arguments!

Implicit and explicit arguments differ in that explicit arguments directly address an issue and express its position on that issue clearly, with organized arguments, while an implicit argument forces the reader to figure out for him or herself what the argument means, guiding the reader to the desired position. A common explicit argument would be a persuasive essay. Essays clearly define positions and defend those positions with solid and clear points. Political ads and speeches are also explicit arguments. An common implicit argument, on the other hand, would be a picture or a poem. Poems and pictures do not clearly point out what their meanings are. Poems often must be searched for the meaning by readers, and pictures contain no words whatsoever; however, these arguments can be equally effective. While an explicit argument can easily be completely ignored by the audience, implicit arguments often depict vivid and touching images, and force the reader to pay attention to their meanings by forcing them to draw the meanings themselves. On page 5 of Writing Arguments there is a photograph and a poem, arguing for different sides of a controversial issue, war. The picture depicts a soldier being greatly honored on veterans day, persuading the reader toward patriotism. The poem depicts a vivid image of soldier dying from a mustard gas attack, implying that there is no reason that a soldier should be forced to undergo such a thing as war, and conveying to the reader that dying for one's country is meaningless. While neither one of these arguments directly stated their meanings, they both were able to use the reader to get their point across, separating them from explicit arguments. 

purpose story

When I was about six or seven years old, I was staying with my grandparents in Florida. I was having a great time running around outside and enjoying the warm climate foreign to Indiana. My grandparents then invited me to go throw bread to the seagulls. For a short time, I was content and entertained, standing on the dock watching the seagulls fight over the breadcrumbs. Then, I looked to my left to find a blue herin, which stood up to be about my entire height if not taller. I was scared and I did not know what to do. I carefully started backing towards my house where my grandparents were when the beastly bird let out a hideous noise and charged directly toward me, its long pointed beak leading the way. I was absolutely terrified of what this bird would do to me and was overwhelmed by the helplessness of having nowhere to run. I let out a yell as what I felt was my last chance of survival. It was then that my sleeping father, who had been previously fishing on the dock, awoke started and hit the gargantuan bird with his fishing rod. The startled bird left, and I again felt a sense of safety, but the sense of being overwhelmed by fear and helplessness remained with me for days, as I had never before realized my safety could ever be an issue and that even with my parents around me I could still be threatened. 

Anything in the class so far

Of all the things we have done in this class so far, my favorite was reading and discussing workings of the brain and emotional bankruptcy by Scott Fitzgerald. I found this particularly interesting and entertaining because I could relate to its generalizations on human nature and discussions of the workings of the brain. This enhanced interest gave me a much clearer and more accurate understanding of the reading, making it significantly more enjoyable. 

The connections I could make with real life helped my understanding because, I felt, they gave the complex ideas an essence of tangibility. While ideas about matters I had never heard of or discussed before would usually elude my comprehension, seeing the explanations in myself and others locked in the precise meaning, which would have otherwise blurred over, providing me with only a vague idea of the reading's purpose.

I generally liked this reading because it, unlike most other readings I am given, seemed to have one clear meaning that I could recognize. While experiences remain solid in the mind, words can only help describe those experiences so the fact that i could relate the words to a specific experience in my life helped immensely. 

Language evolution

It is clear just from everyday English that language is the product of evolution. While the changes in language may not occur every day, it is obvious that it happens. Every year words are added and removed from various dictionaries, spellings of words are modified, words such as "google" enter the language, and the English language further distances itself from similar languages such as Spanish or Latin. There is no question that language evolves. It can be seen everywhere.

There is no specific time when the language we speak changes, as it tends to slowly occur over time, but there are many specific ways in which the changes can occur. The only real necessity for language to change is that people commonly understand a new phrase or word to have the same meaning or set of meanings. By far, the easiest way for that to happen is to make the new word's meaning self-explanatory. For example; taking a known or commonly used noun and making it a verb by adding "ed." Ed "paintball-ed" the house. Because the meaning is clearly understood, others can easily follow the example set by the speaker and use it in their own sentences. Another way that language can quickly evolve is to have a large number of people of various cultures and languages enter society. New words are quickly adopted by those who consistently hear them to mean the same thing and use it on their own. 

Language evolves because it was never set in stone in the first place. Before rules such as spelling or sentence structure came into play, a word's only purpose was and still occasionally is that the listener understands it. New words inevitably develop as more people use them, and if the majority understands it, it becomes a word. Common era regulations such as dictionaries and grammar rules can only slow it down. 

story

The phone rang, and I was mildly annoyed that no one else was around to answer it, but in the end I think the call was for me. After I said, "Hello," the elderly male voice on the other end asked politely to speak to Jim. When I told him that he must have the wrong number, he told me that he was trying to get in touch with an old friend in Zionsville, and it had been a while since they had talked. He verified that he had dialed the correct number, and then he began to question me. He wanted to know if I lived in Zionsville, and how old I was.  I felt a bit nervous because I know that you should not talk to strangers, but he just did not seem to be a thief or a pedophile. He seemed nice and lonely. He told me about his children and his family with whom he was rarely able to have decent conversation anymore and his wife who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease a few years ago. After several minutes on the phone the man thanked me for talking to him and suggested that I might have been one of his "angels". "Angels?" I asked. He told me that there are a few angels that walk among us, and we never really know who they are. He explained that if you are sitting on a park bench and someone else sits beside you, you make the choice to talk to or ignore him or her. If you disregard the person, you just might miss talking to one of your angels. I thanked the man for sharing his stories, and we said good-bye. The conversation reminded me that sometimes I feel too busy to stop and talk to people, and there are many elderly people who have great stories to tell and no one to listen. I vowed to take the time to talk to older people. I think the man who called me just might have been my angel.

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