Exercise 7.j

I think the format of the paper is most like a column in a music magazine. This is because of the pictures, the large captions, and the text being situated in two columns. If not for these, it would look like a standard research paper. The text itself doesn't lend anything unique to the paper as it is black Times New Roman. I think that this paper would be better fit for a newspaper because of its length, but the pictures would have to be removed which would make it lose much of its appeal. The pictures in the paper give the reader a chance to take a break from reading so much text. The first picture is included in the paper as a hook. If the pictures and bold text were taken away readers would be less likely to be interested in it, especially since it is so lengthy. With the pictures readers will at least skim the article to read the descriptions under the pictures.

General Respone

I enjoyed McCloud's explanation of comics as a medium. I have thought of comics for most of my life as being a genre, characterized by low-quality, melodramatic stories accompanied by heavily-inked illustrations of impossibly chiseled masked men. Only within the past couple of years have I noticed that there are many graphic novels which break away from this 80-year old stereotype and squeeze the potential out of the medium. Graphic Novels such as Watchmen and The 300 do things that can only be done with comics (although the film 300 manages to present a faithful adaptation of the book's style and gritty, somber tone).
I also very much enjoyed McCloud's theory as to why cartoons have such lasting appeal. The fact that he uses cartoons to explain why we like cartoons only strengthens his argument and also shows the reader why comics is a medium with its own strengths.

Workshop

How a workshop draft should look depends on what phase it's in. For most papers it would be best to start out with an outline, so that the thesis is clearly stated and the information/commentary is well-structured and well-organized. Then when the writer has the outline critiqued (e.g. what information is useless or redundant) then the skeleton can be turned into a draft that looks roughly like the final product. The purpose of a draft is for other people, such as the writer's peers, to suggest what needs to be done for the final paper to be well-written. Its purpose is also for the writer to see what each paragraph should include so that it's not a big, jumbled mess.
The feedback I would give on Essay R would be one word: rewrite. The writer needs to go back to the "skeleton" phase and have the ideas organized and the thesis written on the side so that it's ever present. Then when the writer turns the skeleton into a draft, there (hopefully) will be a better transition between ideas and an actual argument.

Essay R

I would give this paper a "C." Although the writer clearly knows a lot about the topic and even appears to be enthusiastic in conveying information about the WWE, the sharpness of the essay is lost to the poor punctuation and spelling. Also, the paper does not have proper flow-- that is to say, the paragraphs do not transition from one to the other in the best order.
Also, I feel that paragraph two is awkward. It should either be broken up and integrated into other paragraphs or rewritten to be more relevant to the rest of the essay. Paragraph two just doesn't show us how pro-wrestling has changed like the other paragraphs do. And what is with the readability of the last paragraph?

First blog

This be me first blog. ever. Not just on this site, but ever. Hooray, now I've joined the masses.