Category: ENG110

My entire high school career, peer review was always a way of picking out the little things, rather the local edits, in a paper. I’ve always found it easy when it came to peer review to then just sit there and pick out the grammatical errors rather than focus on what the topic was, whether evidence was making sense or not, etc. However, changing this perspective of peer reviewing from local to global edits seems to help give me a better understanding of what I am writing about as well. I feel as though global editing will also give help me when reviewing my own paper, looking back I will know what evidence fits and what evidence may not, where it is needed, etc. It has also given me a better understanding of what I should be writing about as well. Global edits are also the reviews we as students typically need the most, rather than going back and seeing grammatical errors that we could have easily changed when we went to read through our papers. By allowing someone to check the structure of our paper rather than the small easy to find errors, we can then focus on writing and fixing the important parts of our formal essay. Overall, I would prefer to receive and give global edits on papers rather than local edits so that way I can focus on the big picture rather than the small points I can go back and fix quickly.

Intro 1:

Our life is like a box of chocolates, no? You wake up everyday, not knowing what to expect but hoping, just hoping, that you’re day will go as great as if you were to blindly pick your favorite chocolate. Now take a minute and ponder over how this metaphor may have just influenced your thoughts. Am I really waking up everyday not knowing what to expect, just as a box of chocolates? It’s crazy isn’t it? Metaphors create this image in our heads that give us a new version of an idea/object that doesn’t seem to correlate at all, such as life and a box of chocolates. James Geary, Michael Erard, and Dhruv Khullar have all published their own ideas on how metaphors affect society’s everyday thinking. Geary uses examples such as Elvis Presley to catch his audience when describing how metaphors are created. Erard, metaphor designer, goes deeper into the creation of a metaphor explaining how they are created to force us to see both sides of a reality. On the other hand, Khullar connects metaphors to health studies as he leaves his audience to question whether it is morally okay to compare a chronic illness with war. Ultimately, all three authors come together to discuss the importance of metaphors in our daily lives, affecting us emotionally, and stimulating our thoughts.

Intro 2:

We often miss out on the small details in our lives which often have the greatest impact. The sunsets, the hellos and goodbyes, and most importantly, metaphors. Metaphors, as we commonly know them, are a tool used in English to compare to things. However, the meaning behind a metaphor can become so much deeper. In fact, there are metaphors all around us today that psychologically affect us without us even noticing. James Geary, Michael Erard, and Dhruv Khullar all talk about the effects that metaphors have on society and the deeper meaning that comes from their creation. Geary discusses how our brains translate a metaphor just hearing them. Erard discusses how designers make “pseudo-mistakes” in order to create a metaphor in which society will see both sides of something. Khullar on the other hand discusses the ways in which metaphors such as “this illness is a battle” can affect our health. Overall, the way in which we perceive metaphors may affect our emotions, visions of reality, and health.

In Dhruv Khullar’s “The Trouble with Medicine Metaphors”, he discusses the influences that metaphors may have on chronically ill patients. When faced with an illness, society automatically uses “military metaphors” as Khullar would say, by creating a situation where the illness is a battle. Khullar argues that this comparison of an illness to a battle may be making things worst for the patient. Instead of going towards the problem with positivity, they resort to the pressures of “fighting a battle” not for themselves, but for their doctor and family. There have even been studies indicating that patients whose illnesses were not referred to as a battle showed lower levels of stress and depression. However, Khullar concludes with the importance of the patients perspective. Instead of referring to their illness automatically as a “fight”, doctors should converse with the patient as to how they see their illness.

Personally, I was back and forth with Khullar’s argument that illnesses should not be compared to a “fight”, or “battle”. Throughout the beginning of his article, Khullar continued to mention that the idea of a battle with a chronic illness would only result in a negative outlook from the patients perspective. However, I disagree. About seven months ago, I went through the removal of a benign tumor. This entire experience was a battle I never thought I’d face, and quite frankly a battle I’m proud to say I overcame. It was a fight between these rapidly multiplying cells inside my body, and my mental health. A fight I continued to tell myself every night that I would defeat, and I did. Attending breast cancer parades and seeing individuals with “fighter” pins and quotes about beating the battle reminds me of the strength that we all hold inside of us, despite the obstacles we are forced to face. On the other hand, I do agree with Khullar’s conclusion that the doctor should communicate with the patient before automatically connecting their illness with a battle. I found that allowing myself to become a strong soldier helped to push me through my entire experience. Although, I can see how for some individuals they may feel pressured into showing off their strength for the people counting on them in their lives, making everything much harder on their part. Despite the difference between my vision and Khullar’s, I believe that we can agree that the patient should decide how they metaphorically see their illness.

Metaphorically Speaking: “Metaphorical thinking is essential to how we understand ourselves and others, how we communicate, learn, discover and invent.” I chose this quote because it states to it’s audience the importance of metaphors on our psychological behaviors in our day to day lives.

See Through Words: “It’s the classic look at how metaphors structure the way we think and talk, and once you’ve read it, you can’t help but agree that, at a conceptual level, life is a journey, and arguments are wars.” Metaphors are often opening up doors for our thinking, allowing us to see both sides of an idea and influencing how we think about it.

The Trouble With Medicine’s Metaphors: “Metaphors allow doctors to develop a common language with patients, and offer patients an avenue to express their emotions and exert agency over their conditions.” Metaphors give the patient a better description of what their body is going through when they face serious illnesses, and allow them to express their emotions towards how they visualize their situation.

After rereading Erard’s essay, I found that I still agreed with most of my original comments. One thing that I took more of a notice to this time was how people were not comfortable with being uncomfortable as they read metaphors. As Erard says, people wanted certain terms, “because they’re conventional and recognizable”. That being said, people can take metaphors  with comfortable terms and relate their lives to them, or even understand them better. Along with realizing this, I also took into consideration how much effort Erard put in to making each metaphor and its author credential by showcasing their education. However, I personally feel as though his “paintbrush as a pump” metaphor still does not make sense. Sure you can explain that a paintbrush moves liquids just as a pump would, but a pump can also push air through it, unlike a paintbrush. If a consumer were to look for paintbrushes and saw “paintbrush as a pump” on it’s package I feel like they would question it and not understand that both objects move liquids. Although I do not have any examples of my own, I believe there could be better ways to compare a paintbrush with another object that would be appealing to everyone, not just the designer.

Rereading the essay not only brought these views into light, but I was also able to better understand the major points that Erard made after “glossing the text”.  When I first read the essay, I was unsure as to what he meant as he talked about “pseudo-mistakes” and their importance. Once I took the time to look up pseudo, I found that it meant fake/false, and was able to conclude that the term pseudo-mistake meant a fake mistake. Intended I guess you could say. Metaphor designers deliberately use this strategy to make their metaphors understandable. As if they had just been throwing words all over the floor, as Erard would say, and later examining them and testing their collaboration with the original object of comparison. If you spend hours miscategorizing an object, you may be able to find a similarity between said object and another member in that same category, as he did with a paintbrush and pump. After understanding this term, I was able to better understand what Erard was attempting to explain to his audience.

In conclusion, rereading this essay has created a better understanding, personally, as to how Erard was explaining the metaphor process, and how to create a meaningful one.

Who knew metaphors could be so incorporated in the world around us? Michael Erard explains the ways in which society understands a metaphor, and how two opposite objects/ideas can relate, such as “the paintbrush and pump”. As I was going through this text, there were a couple quotes that really stuck out to me. They made me sit and think a little more about the importance of the text I was reading, along with what the author, Erard, wanted his readers to comprehend.

One quote that really stuck out to me was how metaphors, “generated new perceptions, explanations, and inventions” which Erard quoted from US philosopher Schon. I know what you may be thinking, that’s the whole point of a metaphor! In all honesty, I’ve never really took them into consideration. How they constantly defy the odds of objects, and “miscategorize the thing you are trying to explain” as Erard says. For example, the well known metaphor “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get” by the infamous Forrest Gump. Life and a box of chocolates, two completely different things. However, the metaphor, to me at least, makes complete sense. When you are given a box of chocolates, there are a variety of options for you to choose, and you often blindly choose one. As with life, you never know what is going to happen. We blindly walk through our days, with both big and small options that we are always choosing. What will we eat? What will happen tomorrow? How will I do on this test? Will I get accepted into this college/job? We really never know. With that being said, this metaphor has already created this new perception in my brain as to how our life works. Despite there being two different objects compared to each other, I feel as though I understand everything the author has tried explaining to me.

Later on in the text, Erard describes how him and his fellow colleagues tested a set of metaphors on pedestrians walking by on the street. To briefly summarize their experiment, they started with asking what skills are, then after receiving very few thoughts on what a skill is, gave them a metaphor combing skills and ropes, which then resulted in lengthy explanations by the passer-byres who were unsure how to answer at first. He describes this, “as if this new idea, which we gave to them, had taken them by the hand”. I completely agree with what Erard is explaining to us here, mostly because as I was reading this I acted as if I was one of the pedestrians walking by. When asked to explain skills, I could mumble a bunch of words to you in my best efforts to sound educated. However, if I was given an explanation such as “skills are like ropes, woven out of many components braided together” I could then go on and on about how a skill is created, what they are, and how they apply to everyday life. The metaphor almost guided me, as well as the other pedestrians, to a better way of explaining an easy word which we already knew, but just not how to explain it.

I believe that if taken seriously and done in time, ePortfolio could hold a great potential for all students including myself. As the days pass by, technology is becoming a bigger  part of our society and is the most important way to advertise businesses, products, media, etc. It is too early to tell if there are any downsides to this website, however I can tell that it may take time to figure out how to work everything. Although, the extra time taken to learn how to work the website will benefit as students can showcase their work to graduate schools, and possibly employers, which would be difficult to do with just pen and paper work. Personally, I’ve always worked with technology in my academic settings but never created a website of my own, and I am excited to see what my ePortfolio will have to offer!