Odell, Jenny. Exercises in Attention. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, Melville House, , pp. 114-126.
Odell writes a somewhat sprawling personal narrative that starts off as a response to a passage in Time Well Spent by James Williams, but that then diverts into a response to a Masters thesis by Devangi Vivrekar on persuasvie design. The point that Odell aims to make is not that we need to learn to live with persuasive design and recognize (and accept) that the persuasive designers are just far more advanced and far smarter and far superior than all of us (and so we should learn to live with them), but rather than we ought to try to learn self-control and realize that there is a real world and a real reality outside the control of the persuasive designers, i.e., naturethat we can all recognize and appreciate and come to live in and be part of. To arrive at that conclusion, Odell takes a somewhat long trip down recent memory lane, describing her different experiences over the past few years: I first learned about James Williams from a recent Stanford masters thesis by Devangi Vivrekar... (114) and Just a day before reading Vivrekars thesis, I had seen the film Blindspotting... (118) and A year and a half ago I came across an aerial map of Rancho Rinconada... (123) and Last year I told my friend Josh about (re)noticing Calabazas Creek. He lives in Oakland but had grown up, near me, in Sunnyvale... (124). Eventually it arrives at the conclusion, which is this: Realities are, after all, inhabitable. If we can render a new reality togetherwith attentionperhaps we can meet each other there (126). In other words, do not work with the attention economy but fight against it; regain control of your attention and direct it where you want it to go.
Get out of your comfort zone and don't miss this once-a-year event. Use this opportunity to establish your own place in the office. WHAT I HAVE LEARNED in the EXERCISE: Direct communication and persuasive communication both aim to make the reader/listener do certain things that the writer/speaker wants them to. Their difference from each other could be seen in their construction and the way they are constructed. Direct communication requires an
Making a point is important in persuasive essays, and that point should be clearly articulated in persuasive essay titles. The title of the paper will essentially be where you the author state clearly and emphatically the position you will be taking. Often, the easiest way to write a title for this kind of essay is to use the colon approach: in the first half of the essay title, state the
Hochswender piece persuasive? Why is it persuasive and in what passages do ethos, pathos, and logos come in to play in terms of assuring that it is persuasive (or not persuasive)? This paper critiques the Hochswender essay and finds it is not persuasive; and in fact it comes off as a conservative rant against two progressive personalities who advocate for reducing dependence on foreign oil and for cars that
Drama Persuasive Letter from a Brother to a Sister To My Only and Cherished Sister Anne, The first thing I want you to know or to remind you of is that I love you. I respect your decisions as an adult, but that does not mean that I always agree with them. I know that things have never been easy for us. Life is not easy for any one. I want you to
Business Division Faculty Members FROM: The Dean, Business Division New Trash-Emptying Program As you may all know, the University is currently in the midst of a 25-percent budget cut initiative across all divisions. In that regard, there exists a need for individual divisions to come up with ways of saving money in the face of the said budget cuts. Our division has been singled out for the first phase of a proposed
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