Reflection of English 101

                Writing can be really easy at times, and really hard at others, what makes the difference is what I am writing about.  I would like to think of myself as a more creative writer, when I am on to something it flows on to the paper in no time.  However, this semester has had a lot of rhetorical analysis and research writing which has been a huge struggle.  My writing over this past semester has grown an immense amount, even when the grades have not been the best I still have learned how to be a better writer and why it can benefit me in any job field I choose.

            The very first rhetorical analysis I wrote on my own was on an article written about poverty in the United States and whether it was making people literally sick.  The rhetorical analysis is supposed to be on one specific thing the author or writer did well, such as egos, logos, pathos, their tone, diction, or voice.  Instead of one I wrote it on three, and because the writing could not be that long it was too spread out and too short of an explanation, making the analysis too hard to understand.

            From that point on I spent each rhetorical analysis, whether it be in class or on my own, determining one specific thing about the writing and spending about a half an hour on the thesis and quotes from the article.  Each one got better in my eyes however I was still getting a C+ here and a B- there.  I didn’t know what exactly I was doing wrong, even in some of the other writings that involved research and a strong thesis. 

            My professor then said that each thesis my class was writing was a “parallel thesis”, which is a thesis all students were taught in elementary school, to give your opinion and three reasons why.  Those three reasons would then turn into each body paragraph.  He said that a parallel thesis was to broad and a real college thesis was one that focused on one thing, and the many parts that made that one thing something to talk about.

            This “college thesis” would be the one thing in this class that made my writing that much better.   It forces the writer to think more in depth about the topic and really focus specifically on each little piece involved.  Overall as each assignment came and went in this class, my writing got better and with each little blog assignment it showed how writing will be a part of my job for the rest of my career.  

Bring in a new Wrestling Room

To whom it may concern,

My name is Devin Winn, I am a freshman here at Bridgewater State and am also a starter on the varsity wrestling team.  During the first week of practice I noticed that as a team we have to roll out the mats we practice on every day before and roll them back up every day after practice.  This takes time away from our practice and there has been an occasion where practice had to end early because there was a class being taught in the Kelly small gym.  Now this is not that big of a deal, however, it would be easier on a lot of faculty and students if the wrestlers had our own room dedicated to us where the mats could stay rolled out and we were able to show up, mop, then practice. 

Along with having to roll the mats out in the Kelly gym, each year around January for a certain number of weeks the team has to rent a truck, load up the mats, and move them across campus to Tinsley Training Center where practice is held.  I don’t know if you’ve ever had to move mats before, but it is a huge pain to deal with and it takes away from some teams who also have to train in Tinsley.  Having a separate place specified for the wrestling team would take away that hassle and keep each practice for all teams running smoothly.

Not only would this benefit the wrestling team in a tremendous way, it would benefit some of the staff in Kelly gym as well.  For example, the custodian who cleans the gym at the start and end of every day can not clean the floor completely with our mats rolled up in the way, this also causes the dust and dirt that he can not sweep up to get caught on our mats in the creases and could bring the spread of skin infection and/or sickness. 

Also, if there was a separate room dedicated to wrestling, any yoga or similar classes could use that space to run the class.  Instead of rolling their yoga mats out on the hardwood floor, where if someone loses balance and falls over they could hurt themselves, they could roll the yoga mats out over our wrestling mat and have a safer more comfortable yoga experience.

CPDC runs every Saturday in Kelly, sometimes they swim, other times they play basketball, and other times they use our mats when the smaller kids are running around or climbing on things to build motor skills and again, if they fall on the hardwood floor they could get seriously injured.  Having this padded room could prevent and injury happening to a younger kid as well as any kid who is messing around.

Overall having this room would greatly impact many of the faculty, staff, student, and anyone else who choses to take advantage of it.  The wrestling team has had its downfalls, however with 11 new freshmen joined this year, the program is on the spiral up with many more students and much more success to come.  I would hope that you please consider this option as it could have a very positive impact on the University’s campus as well as the lives of everyday students like my team and me.

Thank you for your time,

Devin Winn

Class of ‘21

Voice Technology on the Rise?

           When going to any party, music is the one thing almost always playing. A playlist is necessary to “liven” the party. Every time I go to a party at my aunt’s house, music is always blasting. Except it didn’t always stay the same the station would change in the midst of people talking without anyone taking out their phone or walking over to the speaker.  The way she was able to change the music by speaking was really cool.

            “Hey Alexa, play Pink radio” and right away, the Pink Pandora station would start playing. Seeing the confusion, she explained that it was a voice recognition speaker and just by saying an artist name or station, Alexa would automatically start playing it. After that, commercials for these speakers started to pop up all over television and it seemed as if almost everybody had one.

            Voice enabled technology is becoming a large part of society. Everyone is starting to use Echo and Google speakers mainly for the convenience of it and now almost every phone has voice enabled tech in it. “hey Siri, how is the weather” and your iPhone will instantly pull up the weather for the next 7 days for you.

            This new technology changed the way we are able to listen to music.  Speakers have been changing forever, they have gone from stationary large plug in stereo systems to now small wireless speakers. Amazon began to come out with different types of these Echo speakers and not too long after, Google came out with one of their own versions.

            According to an article on USA Today, Alexa, what's the most popular voice-enabled speaker?, the number of Americans who use the tech, like echo, at least once a month has doubled since last year.  One of their sources, eMarketer, has said that millennials are the ones driving this surge with more than one-third of them using them this year. 

            The amazon Echo speaker holds a 70% share of the speaker market, and the Google assistant holds 24%.  Combine these voice enabled speakers hold 94% of the speaker market.  The need for this tech comes from the need for a more personalized experience, not only are these convenient speakers to use at a party or when you’re too lazy to change the station remotely, they revolutionized the consumer market.

            Businesses needed better ways to connect with consumers and almost everyone wants to have an easier way to do everyday activities, ordering food for delivery instead of cooking yourself, buying things online instead of going to the store.  With Echo people can now order one click items online just by saying it, or place their dominos easy order without even moving.  Having these abilities caused the surge of consumers for these kinds of tech.

            According to Consumer AI — Voice Enabled Technology, an article posted by chatbotslife.com, people look for new ways to save time and money.  Once Siri came out consumers started looking for the next big thing to help them save more time.  Amazon responded with Alexa the Echo speaker, and now there are “No more customer care issues, lack of sales, inefficient inventory management, Time consuming Supply Chain, lack of Omnichannel and data analysis. Businesses have data, consumers have data all they need is Voice Technology to map the two together.”

            The advancement in speaker system has recently made major changes in how we are able to listen to music. Technology like Siri and the Echo speaker was created to make life simpler. Having a resource to help us out allows us to save money and time. Voice technology for speakers has impacted so many aspects of the consumer industry that the large need for these products was bound to happen.