Photo Journal

Café by Candido Portinari

The piece of art that I chose is a picture of a famous Brazilian painter named Candido Portinari. This specific piece is called “Café”, Coffee in English. The intention of the artist in this painting is show and tell a little bit of the history of Brazil during the colonization period. We can assume that it represents the colonization period analyzing the evidences in the picture. The work is exposed as primitive. People are carrying bags of coffee in their heads, no machinery was used. The use of solid colors makes an association with a shadowy period considered bad in human behavior. We can notice that there are only black people working. None white, Asiatic, or other ethnicity people are exposed in this picture, letting us to assume that in that period only the black people were the labors, making associations we conclude the work as slavery. The clothes are simple, basic t-shirts, pants and no shoes, letting us to think in the cruelty of people against each other in that time. Not even women were free of this exhausting work. They worked under the sun with any place to relax and the only escape for the hot was their hats. The only man with boots in this picture seems like to be ordering something. He seems to be the boss that was the patrolling the workers at all time. He has a rude attitude, letting us assume that the work at that time was really rigid and cruel. This is how I understand the history of Brazil at that time based on this piece of art.

Thirsty??

I like this advertisement of Coke because as you can see, this particular one appeals to our senses, even though we are only using our eyes. The beads of water forming on the bottle, the ice surrounding, it tells us that this beverage is cold and desirable; the perfect beverage to finish with our thirsty. The spray from the bottle almost comes right out at you. It makes you crave it more because it's right there. While the sensory cues are very important in the selling of Coke, there is a more important marketing tool…Product recognition. You'd have to be out in the most remote regions of the Himalayans to not recognize the Coke label. The bold red background and old glass bottle with the Coca-Cola insignia is hard not to notice. Especially with the global market employed by Coca-Cola, you can't really get away from it. So, does it really work? Yes. Coca-Cola has remained the top selling soft drink bottler for over fifty years. The visual effects on this advertisement makes you feel the sensation of drinking this beverage, consequently, right after looking at this picture the most common reaction of people is to buy a bottle of coke. The useless of objects around the machine and colors give emphasis on the image of the bottle letting clear with beverage is being advertised. The use of the machine instead a single bottle sells the idea that you can have a coke easily, fast and everywhere, even at most uncommon places as Antarctica, and other snowy and unreachable places as the ice around the machine brings our imagination.

Revising Process

The revising process is extremely necessary after writing, especially after writing the paper the first time. The first writing is nominated draft. This is where you throw your ideas, suggestions and beliefs. The revising is extremely important because here is where you can find the parts that need to be re-constructed, parts that run away of the theme, lack of information, development of ideas and other basic points necessary for a good essay.

Writers revise their paper constantly. There are some books that have many editions, caused by revisions that the authors make on their work. Every time that you re-read your paper you can see some point that can be modified, improved or changed. By the time that you are revising the paper I would suggest that each time that you read the essay you read as a different person and ask questions like: Why should I read it? What do I have in common with this story? Where it affects me? So what?

The revising process in an essay can be considered one of the most important points on being a writer because this is the part where you can fix all errors that the paper might have. When re-reading a paper it is important to look up for things like tension, check the structure, grammar, stay away from abstractions, have a good plot, and catch the reader from the beginning until the end of the essay.

It is extremely important to revise the paper before you turn it in. In the revision you can eliminate all errors that could have in the essay and make it more reliable, correct, well structured, interesting, and well developed. The revising process makes the essay a good and pleasurable reading.

Situation Analysis

First of all, an advice that I can give to a person who wants to write a freelance article in a magazine is to be aware of the genre of the magazine and who the readers are. Following these steps the article should probably end up well. To explain this better, let’s consider a person who wants to write an article to The Rolling Stone Magazine.

Before the writer starts to write the article he must have some knowledge about this magazine, such as, this is a musical magazine directed mostly for young people and teenagers. The boarded subjects are about singers’ lives, band tours, and particularities of famous singers, inside the stage, fights between singers, and others. As a result, knowledge of every kind of information related to music is a prerequisite.

Another important point is that the writer must identify is that as the readers are teenagers, the articles can not be very long, otherwise it gets boring and the aimed public won’t read it until the end. The articles also don’t go deep in the subject; they only provide superficial information.

The language must be clear, direct, and popular, at last, an informal and easy language, sometimes making use of slang, visual effects, new stylish format. There is a large amount of advertisement of music channels, events, drinks, movies, and everything else related to the young universe and somehow related to music.

Considering all these criteria before writing is essential, otherwise the writer could by mistake write for a different public with different format, language and subject. If the writer follows these basic steps, they will succeed in their purpose which is to sell a freelance article to the magazine.

Unforgettable

Writing an autobiography is not a hard task as you will write about your own experience. This experience could be good or tragic, memorable or forgetful, but either way, it is something that you have lived sometime, somewhere, with somebody, or somehow. All kinds of information are helpful and necessary to situate the reader.

By the time that you are writing you need to consider who the reader of the plot that you are writing is, thus it will help you in making a better story and structure. Identifying precisely all the characters and their characteristics such as personality, template, tone of voice, and every single important information that you can provide from this person is an important point, as this way you can approach your life experience with the reader’s life, making the essay interesting and catching the reader until the end.

The character beyond yourself doesn’t have necessarily to be a friend, or somebody known; when the fact has occurred you could be alone, but somebody was watching you or passing by. The character can be an animal, a person, a group, in conclusion, something that was on the same place as you in that specific time, because they have their importance on the fact. Somehow they participate in the event, and it is also necessary to specify their action on the scene. If it shows that they were helping, participating, or just looking is also very important.

Exposing the character trough a dialogue is valid and efficient if a conversation was made between you, if not, describing the person and their manners is already enough. The conclusion is that as much as you can characterize and tell about the other character in your history is better because it makes them vivid and memorable, and provides to the reader the background for your story. However, choosing the best way to introduce the character as the whole plot is essential considering who the reader is. After that and with a good story the essay would be successful.

Letter X Summary

After reading the civil engineer’s original letter on page 17 of Allyn & Bacon, with the one-sentence summary on page 42, it was easy to compare these works and notice that both are about the same subject, but they differ on how they are written. On the original letter the engineer explained and gave examples of each topic that he is approaching. On the summary, as the proper name says, it is summarizing; it is general, vague and without further explanations and examples. It provides only the main point of the discussion.

In the letter, the engineer starts telling to the editor that he doesn’t agree with an editorial posted by him and already giving previous reasons why he doesn’t agree. Along the letter the engineer explains how that model would be inefficient, such as materials, weather and location, and to be even more reliable, the engineers makes use of technical language and show that he is a professional in this area, having knowledge and experience enough to prove his statements.

Both articles are understandable, but how the letter is more explained in detail, it is easier to understand and believe in the writer. In the case of the summary, it is not possible to trust a hundred percent in the article at the first time, as it has a lack of information. Therefore, making the thesis statement weak it was necessary to make some researches by your own in order to get a background and understand the situation, later on, turning the article a reliable and understandable piece with a logical point.

From the bottom to the top

Enjoying a piece that I write is not a common thing. Last summer came to change things in my life. I started my classes at FIU and took mostly easy going classes, as SLS and music appreciation, except for one class: ENC1930. As an international student, my first language being Portuguese, and inexperienced with English writing, this class became my nightmare during my summer. My first essays came with very low grades, and I had the feeling that I would fail the course. Along the course my grades started to increase, but not as much as I wished it would. My last work was a research paper that was twenty points toward the final grade.

Since the day that I knew it I couldn’t sleep anymore, I couldn’t think about anything else besides that paper. I had a huge problem along my way. Working on it 24 hours a day wasn’t enough. I had to work with the grammar, structure, and my shyness as much in writing. My communicating abilities was also weak for I had to do surveys and interviews for the paper and to find time to do it since I was working full time in an airline, which consumed most of my time. I tried to get the most help possible, like going to the learning center, help from friends, teachers, and more.

In the last class before the due date, the professor called us one by one to give us a review on how we were progressing in the class. Well, mine wasn’t the best evaluation. In order to get an A on that class I would have to get minimum of 19 points on the paper, something that not even the professor believed that could happen. I remember her words since today; “I believe that you will get a B, but surprise me”, and that is exactly what happened. Days after days I kept looking for my grades on my profile but FIU didn’t post it. I was almost loosing my hope when two weeks before the end of classes the grades were posted and surprisingly I got an A in the English class.

I was at work by the time that I saw my grade. I couldn’t control myself and as soon as I saw it I got so shocked that I screamed all of a sudden and started to jump in the office. My co-workers looked at me terrified trying to figure out what was happening with me. Excited as I was, I hugged one by one and explained them the occurrence. All of them congratulated me and got very happy because they knew how hard it had been for me, and how much that meant. I realized that I’m capable to do things that I can’t even imagine.

Writing under strict rules and closed format is easier in the beginning because it makes a basis of how you have to conduct things along the essay, explicit thesis statement and having logical support. That was probably the reason why I could get such a high grade. In the future I believe the open format will be easier to write on, but at the moment I prefer the closed type. That is what I have used on the research paper and got the excellent feedback, and that is the one that I feel the most comfortable when I write.