The Walcott Poem

   Díaz incorporated Walcott's poem in his novel because it has a similar effect on readers. It uses harsh phrases like "dog rotting" and "slums of empire was paradise." Additionally, it deals with the speaker having a cultural identity crisis, and this is a major theme in the novel as a whole. Walcott uses a frank, straightforward tone to share the thoughts of the speaker, Shabine, who represents the mixed cultural heritage of his people in general. Moreover, Díaz uses his characters to reflect his own cultural identity.
   By putting it at the beginning of the novel, Díaz introduces these themes to sort of prepares the reader for an emotionally tough story.

Room for Improvement

I get wordy (Hey! It only took me three words to say that).  Knowing this already, I cut out a lot of adverbs and modifiers before I finished the rough draft of my memoir. From the feedback I received, it clearly helped clean up my paragraphs and clarify my message. Moreover, I carefully chose the words I did include. Instead of saying "fell into a chaotic nightmare," I said "erupted..." (this was an awesome suggestion from a peer reviewer). Even with few words, the language can shape the story. Thankfully, now I know what works, so thank you! Hopefully, I'll continue to exclude the fluff- until it's necessary, at least.

In addition to my love of elaborate description, I often take on too general of a subject; I want to do too much in too little space, and it ends up being a mess. This results from my indecisiveness and wishy-washy tendencies toward writing assignments. I get all excited about writing something, but with too many ideas in my head, I shut down and everything automatically goes into a blender. Then, my rough draft slides onto the table all chunky and sad. I must force myself to pick a topic, stick with it, and write it down. The time for chunky, sad blender papers has passed, and I'm on my way to overcoming this obstacle so I can run into another one.

The Importance of this Editorial Topic

When many people are thinking about serious topics like disease and education for their editorials, I must appear a bit shallow or mocking for choosing on "the dangers of laptops." However, I did think this through, and I will explain.

I looked through various websites by means of a basic google search on ideas such as multi-tasking, education, and the recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Then, I expanded on my data sources and searched through online newspapers like the Globe and Mail and the Telegraph. Although the articles were interesting and relevant, I couldn't get excited about them, or at least not the way I should to write about them. That's why I twisted my goal for this editorial.

While I don't have the adequate knowledge or passion to talk about the ongoing efforts in post-flood Pakistan or about the intricate mess that Michigan has made out of its education system, I am passionate about improving my ability to deliver information to readers so that they are entertained but informed. Parking is a relevant topic on our campus, but it's not interesting. Mario Vargas Llosa recently won the Nobel Prize in Literature, but I doubt that would interest many OU students.

The topic of laptops literally burning people's legs is funny, but the OU community can relate it to their lives. If it's not serious enough, I can change it, but I'm really enjoying the research process. Experiencing burns from a laptop shouldn't be funny, but if a person is spending five hours per day chatting on Facebook or playing World of Warcraft without moving their computer off of their quadriceps, we have a right to poke fun at them.

Feedback on Using Language

Considering the fact that I only put up my conclusion, I’m pretty happy with the feedback I received. I definitely kept those comments in mind when I edited the last paragraph and the paper as a whole. One of my issues was wordiness, and in hopes of avoiding it, I really cut down on descriptive words for my first draft. After what my group members said and the feedback online, I felt better about adding more adjectives and modifiers. In addition, I wanted to keep the language somewhat simple, but that means really looking at the words I’m using- especially the verbs.

For example, my introduction includes a sentence about the girls’ locker room falling into chaos. To make it more powerful, my group member suggested using “exploded” or “erupted” instead of “fell”. It’s that type of close inspection that’s exhausting but ultimately better for my memoir. So, thank you to those who gave me suggestions; it really helped me examine the language I was using and why I was using it.