Diagrams

What simply does a diagram do? Does it paint a picture for us, instead of us merely doing it ourselves? Does is explain to us thoroughly what it is trying to convey? Diagrams can be just pictures, with words labeling parts (see left). This diagram can be used as a means of teaching. Diagrams can be helpful, pointing out thing that you normally could not see. A heart, for example, is inside you, and in most normal circumstances, you will never see it. The diagram I chose shows us the interworkings of a heart and where everything is located. You could write a long explaination, stating exactly where the aorta is, what atery flows to what muscles, but how can I picture that without knowing exactly what a heart and the arteries look like? A diagram lets us see what we need to see in order to fully understand something. In my oppinion, this is a perfect diagram. It labels everything, so you can see where everything is located. It also has arrows, so you can see where the blood flow is going. It's amazing that just a little picture, a picture with arrows, and colors, and a couple labels can help us better understand something. Is that writing necessarily? In my mind, it could technically be writing. There's words, it explains something, it has a main focus, but is there a conclusion and ending? No, but it has some components of writing. So who's to say a diagram can't be labeled as writing? We have several diagrams in books, most of our textbooks for science, history, accounting, all have diagrams of some sort to organize information so that we can easily see it. In conclusion, I think perhaps a diagram just might be a form of writing.

Heart Diagram

Quote Response

What Lauren Slater describes in the beginning of her quote can relate to us all. "I picked up my pen again, and began to write..." We all have wrote numerous papers, stories, poems, or simple blog posts. We write to unleash anger, write for fun, or because our English teacher requires us to. However, not all writing is always seen. "...began to converse, showing, telling, pausing, contradicting, setting the frayed contents of my mind down on plain paper to be plainly seen by anyone who cared to look." Anyone can sit in the comfort of their home, write down several stories, blog thousands of posts, but what is the writing if no one cares to read it? It is there, written out for any eyes to see but sometimes it is not. Some writing can take years of perfection, every sentence thought out perfectly, hours of a person's life contemplating ideas, characters, facts, but what is all the work if no one reads it? Another thing that Lauren mentions is that essays are often misunderstood, and often confusing. It is not only hard to define what an essay is, as we have all tried to do in class, it is hard to classify it into a genre of writing. As Lauren puts it, it is non-fiction, but it is not always based on facts and just purely informative. Essays have opinions, reflections, and contradictions. Essays can tackle issues by voice of opinion, but are only read if someone is looking for it to be read. The main quote which initially attracted me to Lauren was as follows: "Essay writing is about transcribing the often convoluted process of thought, leaving your own brand of breadcrumbs in the forest so that those who want to can find their way to your door." In all of my reading of definitions of essays, this is the one that helps me understand essays the most. What I took from this quote, and her whole writing, is that an essay is a piece of writing, in which you incorporate your own thoughts, style of writing, and opinion, and then present it to people so that those who truly care and want to find it, will indeed, find it.