Monday, October 12, 2009
Week 8
Let's move the opposite end of the essay and look for awesome closing (or near the end) lines. How does the author tie everything together? share an a-ha moment? conclude? make a call to action? Does the author come back to something mentioned at the start? Or maybe the author ends with a completely new idea? Share what works and what did not.
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"Consider this: A national conversation broke out about sexual violence, and a lot of ordinary Americans sound like they could be guest speakers at a NOW convention. It is an occasion for ambivalence: We can be glad for all the talk, and also sorry it's been necessary."
Brotman does something I find fantastic: She introduces a hypothetical situation as her ending statement. This is so effective because it really gives the reader a comparison to what she has just written about, and as the reader, I felt as if that picture really made the message of the whole article come through. Also, she reverts to "talking" with the reader using "We". Although I like the hypothetical situation, I don't like the last sentence, because while I agree with her that it is unfortunate to be discussing whether rape is rape or not, I feel like the ending sentence is written with a certain non-chalance and oh-whatever attitude; i think she should've concluded in a stronger way because rape is something that is very serious and not something that is just "whatever".
"And then, blip, this reality winks out completely, ready to start all over again. I'm starting my book proposal right now."
Although it doesn't make sense out of context, this ending is actually quite good. The paragraph before this describes an alternate world in which hollywood depicted everyone finding god instead post-apocalyptic zombies. I love how this last sentence starts with contradicting that and then ties it back in by returning to the proposal that he write a book about this new world he imagines. Funny, contradicting and clever - I like it!
"But isn’t that the risk of love? To be willing to stand on the stern on a beautiful summer day and, not knowing the outcome, to leap?"
I thought this ending was a little cliché for the powerful story she was telling (her daughter had died and the story was about how she had adopted another daughter and this girl's near-death experience). Given the nature of the story, I wanted this article to end with a statement, something really personal to this woman and her individual experience. So the big generic question about the nature of love at the end was somewhat disappointing. I felt like it had been done before, which made her story seem less significant.
"Mr. Ryan is 39 years old, though he's serving his sixth term in Congress. In his comments on the health care plan he sounded like a veteran, like someone who thinks he has seen the terrain ahead, seen that it is both crowded and costly."
I thought this was a rather poor closing to the article. In any case, the content was a bit over my head; I know very little about the present hazy jungle of political economics/governing (which was the basic content of the piece), but the layout of the article was a summary and analysis of people's viewpoints on the current situation. Paul Ryan was a perceptive brought in toward the end, and I did not like that Noonan simply closed with an analysis of him instead of zooming back out to the entire article.
"She was already working the story, already doing her thing--you could almost hear her assistant typing up the little personal note on the crested stationary: "Michael, I am always here for you." This is how it must has begun with all of the people she has come to fall in love with, the murderers and the monsters, the celebrities whose loathsomeness radiates from the television."
I really liked this part of the ending because it took something that Barbara Walters had done and extrapolated what her motives had been. This fit perfectly with the image created of Walters throughout the rest of the article and made her actions seem both deluded and pitiful. The power of the article fizzled out in the last few sentences, but these few sentences left me with a lasting impression.
This is the same as the one before, but I accidentally posted it with my sister's e-mail address (Clare)
"She was already working the story, already doing her thing--you could almost hear her assistant typing up the little personal note on the crested stationary: "Michael, I am always here for you." This is how it must has begun with all of the people she has come to fall in love with, the murderers and the monsters, the celebrities whose loathsomeness radiates from the television."
I really liked this part of the ending because it took something that Barbara Walters had done and extrapolated what her motives had been. This fit perfectly with the image created of Walters throughout the rest of the article and made her actions seem both deluded and pitiful. The power of the article fizzled out in the last few sentences, but these few sentences left me with a lasting impression.
"Anyway, say this for Dubner and Levitt — they’ve provoked an interesting discussion, although probably not the one they hoped for."
This was a ending line worked really well for me since I was confused throughout most of the article. There were so many discussions, different view points, and many people involved. This line worked well to pull it together to say that yes so much has surfaced from a simple to discussion between Dubner's and Levitt's and it digs deeper then they intended.
"Limbaugh is a great communicator of his message. I wonder if he heard this one loud and clear."- Michael Wilbon
This line is from Michael's latest article on Rush limbaugh's status of owning a NFL team.I thought this line was very clever at getting the main point of across; Rush needs to listen to the message that he's reciveing: the NFL doesn't want an outspoken, political, bigot as an owner. Throughout Michael's article he analyzes the Limbaugh conflict with his own personal experience and words of others. Others agree with not letting him own a team. Bottom line is that this line works so well because it is basically saying, Rush use your own skill of communicating to figure out the message.
"How devastating if the next time we pause for a moment and think, 'Maybe the parents just want attention.'”
I really liked this closing sentence from Lisa Belkin. The blog entry was discussing the recent "Ballon Boy" hoax story, talking about what would make parents that desperate to get attention for something that didn't even happen in the first place. I thought it was a good way to wrap up her argument, which is that no responsible parent should ever do such a thing. It also could be interpreted as an "a-ha" moment because when I read that last line, my mind immediately jumped to the boy who cried wolf. If an author can get me to think about a statement after I read it, and if that statement happens to be the closing sentence, then it's going to have a bigger impact on what I thought of the article.
“Because these effects are not reflected in energy prices, government, businesses and consumers may not realize the full impact of their choices,” the report said.
This ending line leaves the reader in a sense of unease. We do not know what is going to end up happening, so we are scared. This ending line fits nicely with the article because the article talks about the hidden costs of energy.
"So as we try to figure out how many troops to send to stabilize Afghanistan and Pakistan, let’s remember: Where there is people power wedded to progressive ideas, there is hope — and American power can help. Where there is people power harnessed to bad ideas, there is danger. Where there is no people power and only bad ideas, there will be no happy endings."
I didn't think this was Friedman's strongest ending, but it did have a nice ring to it. Throughout his article, he talks about the role of "people power" in the Arab-Muslim world, and I'm glad he tied this idea into his ending. I do wish that he had given a little more insight into how we can differentiate between the "good ideas" and the "bad ideas;" I think he simplifies his point a little too much by only saying "good ideas," "bad ideas," and "happy endings." Maybe adding one final question on how to differentiate these would have helped (even if he didn't provided an answer). Also, I really liked how at the beginning of his article, he compared the role of people power on 9/11 (Al Qaeda attacks) with that on 11/9 (fall of the Berlin Wall), and I wish he had brought this idea back in the ending as well.
"It's another reason why Obama needs to take ownership of a bill that he'll eventually own anyway."
Here's an essay, and I'm going to end it.
That's how this ending sentence reads, anyways. This was another almost politically insightful article from Dionne that looked perfectly at the veneer of what people are saying instead of what they mean, and an average article was summed up with a bleh ending. It didn't say anything new or make us reexamine the facts or give any new insight. It was just a sum up of the article that any fourth grader could have written. Bleh.
This is what I thought of Dionne's article's last line.
"Here is the conundrum in the closet. For all the lingering opposition to same-sex marriage, being gay is losing its stigma. Having an abortion is being more deeply stigmatized.
Look to your right. Look to your left."
I thought that this was a textbook ending that stood out. She brings another slightly related topic into the ending that leaves the reader thinking. Then she proceeds to take a line that she used in the beginning about how 1 in 3 women have had an abortion and re state it, to make the reader think further and analyze the previous sentence.
I think she did a great job. She left me thinking.
“No more than a small kiss on the first date if,” I said, raising my finger, “if it goes well. But no sex for at least three dates. You know how men are.”
“Three dates?” she asked, with an inscrutable expression. I couldn’t tell if she thought three dates were too many or too little, and I crinkled my brow at this newly revealed part of her personality, watching as she applied red lipstick onto the O of her mouth.
I liked these lines for the humor and familiarity of the scene, but I was actually surprised when I went to read more - and there were no more words. The piece ended abruptly, but it didn't strike me as either particularly good or bad. It works, but it probably isn't the best sign that I went to read more and was confused that the article had actually ended. I do, however, like the imagery in the last sentence, and the situation of not knowing whether the mom is shocked because three dates is too much or too little - I have wondered the same thing about my parents plenty of times before (but about different issues).
PS Sorry this is a day late...
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