Writing Journal
Writing Prompt #1: Food Review
Food critic Pete Wells starts his food review of Le Rock, a new restaurant in Rockefeller Center, with a joke. “The dark ages probably began when the Rainbow Room stopped taking reservations and turned into a wedding space.” This kind of establishes a common ground between the reviewer and the readers, as the paragraph goes on to lament the state of the food scene in Midtown Manhattan, specifically around Rockefeller Center. This gives the reviewer a distinct voice, while also providing information to the reader.
Wells talks about the food with concision and doesn’t spend too long on any one item, so as the reader gets a broad sense of the menu without feeling too overwhelmed with information. He compares Le Rock to a similar restaurant, The Frenchette, and notes Le Rock’s larger selection of shellfish. This gives the reader a more concrete view of the restaurant, especially if they were trying to decide between different places to eat.
He uses pictures as a way of introducing us to the head chef and two owners, as well highlighting specific dishes. I feel that these serve to humanize the owners of the restaurant and make them more relatable, as well as provide an quick insight into what readers can expect of the food.
The review ends with a look at the pastry selection at the restaurant, and also brings the discussion back around to the beginning topic––that being the Rockefeller Center, concluding that Le Rock is a worthwhile visit amongst Midtown restaurants. If money and transportation weren’t an issue, I would certainly like to try out Le Rock.
Writing Prompt #2: Conspiracy Theories
A leading conspiracy surrounding Covid-19 is that of the vaccine causing myocarditis.
This conspiracy claim that the vaccine causes myocarditis, inflammation of the heart. Peddlers of the conspiracy often convey their message, as the Wired article shows, by piling on the deaths of public figures with unfounded claims that the Covid vaccine was to blame. This has caused a growing concern among experts that more and more people will grow hesitant to take the vaccine out of fear of sudden death.
I find this article’s perspective on it especially interesting, as it also focuses on the ways people can indirectly advocate for and spread conspiracy theories and misinformation––mainly the way Elon Musk and Twitter contribute to it. It has become easy, despite the science and data that is publicly available, to spread misinformation because of the way Musk has changed Twitter: ending the regulation of Covid-19 information that’s posted, and restoring accounts that were previously banned for Covid-19 misinformation. This creates a space where it becomes difficult to discern what is and isn’t reliable since there’s no system in place to check what’s being said.
Writing Prompt #3: Epidemiological Maps
This is a spot map for COVID-19. Spot maps are useful in terms of showing which areas of a country are being most effected by a particular disease, in this case COVID-19. This can obviously be useful to public health officials in tracking where a disease is traveling, and which areas require the most support in fighting off a disease.
There are potential drawbacks, however. Maps like this could affect the local economies in areas that are shown to be hotspots, deterring tourism and business. There is also the issue of inaccuracy with spot maps, as they do not communicate the risk or rate of exposure; an area with many dots may have a low rate of infection if the population density is high, but spot maps do not convey that.
Writing Prompt #4: Bad Documents
This sign fails in its goal of alerting the public and passersby of free Covid vaccine mostly due to how it chose to present its message. What should be emphasized is the vaccine, not the virus. By centering FREE COVID, it obviously sends the wrong message to anyone who sees the sign, and not only that, the vaccine portion is barely visible at all. Anyone driving by and quickly glancing at the sign is only going to see the words “FREE COVID,” which is clearly not what the pharmacy wants.
Writing Prompt #5: Data Visualization
While looking through David McCandless’ site, I found myself looking through Nature & Climate section, and specifically the page on Nuclear Fusion. I already found this an interesting concept because I was aware of the difference between Nuclear Fission & Fusion, how we have been able to perform fission for years now, but Nuclear Fusion has still eluded us. McCandless’ organization of the data was very streamlined and easy to understand, and it made me gain a new appreciation for 1) how hard Nuclear Fusion would be to create and 2) how important it is to try.
Nuclear Fusion has many environmental benefits over fission, such as contributing zero carbon emissions, no greenhouse gasses, and it produces much less radioactive waste. This complex information was made very digestible due to McCandless’ neat and concise writing and design style. Most of the byte-sized bits of information also have a graphic design to accompany them, making them easier to grasp for visual learners as well.
Writing Prompt #6: Misleading Data
This graph, from Fox News, is a prime example of a misleading graph being used to distort data and push forward a particular narrative. As you can see, the problem in this graph lies in the Y-axis––specifically the inconsistency of the scale used.
Right off the bat, we can see that the Y-axis does not begin at 0, but rather 30, minimizing the 33 cases on March 18. From there, it continues to go up in increments of 30, until it hits 190. There, it jumps to 240, 250, and then 300. This sporadic plotting is easy to miss at first glance, but it serves a distinct purpose for Fox in the graphing of this data. By smushing these data points together, it is able to lessen the massive jump in cases seen between March 24th and March 26th. A spike of over 150 cases is portrayed as a relatively small bump due to the fiddling with the Y-axis.
Writing Prompt #7: IKEA Effect
This meme about Ikea’s naming process being too simplistic actually led me down an interesting little rabbit hole. After a little bit of research, I found that their naming system is actually somewhat unique compared to other large department stores and competitors. Where most companies use product codes, Ikea’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad, opts to use simple Swedish words to keep track of his products. This is due to his dyslexia––he found it too complicated and cumbersome to be constantly keeping track of and reading strings of numbers, so he decided to circumvent it entirely. I thought this was an interesting fact to learn just from some random meme I found online.
Writing Prompt #8: Coronet Films
What stood out to me most about this Coronet Films PSI as I watched it, was probably the underlying dynamics it puts forward as being the “correct” way to establish a relationship. It seems relevant that, contextually, this film was made at an interesting point in America’s history. It was only five years after WWII, and America was in the early stages of its status as a world superpower; it had an image that it wanted to present as being the “American” way, and a crucial element of that was reaching the youth and leading them towards this burgeoning ideal––the American dream.
In this film, the act of dating or building a relationship gets compartmentalized into these very mechanical, corporate-sounding transactions. At six minutes in, Nick looks at a list of possible activities, and the narrator filters all of the options through a utilitarian lens; a wienie roast is a “chance to learn the give-and-take of working and playing together,” a baseball game is an inexpensive date that’s “not too involved and you can carry through comfortably.”
I think this is a way to teach high schools what a traditional “manly” way to court a girl is. Notice there is no mention of physical contact or anything beyond the boundaries of 1940s conservatism. It is presenting an idealized version of what the country would like to be, rather than the reality of how people interact and build relationships.
Writing Prompt #9: Product Description
My friend Liam has been taking up guitar as a hobby, and I would recommend a guitar tuner to him. The tuner clips right onto the fretboard and makes the process of tuning your guitar much easier. There is no assembly required, as the component parts––the clamp and the head which displays the note––are already connected upon purchase. Triple AAA batteries are required.
Writing Prompt #10: Propaganda
One of the most classic pieces of propaganda is the United States’ Uncle Sam poster. The iconic image was created by J.M. Flagg in 1917 to recruit soldiers for WWI, and it was later used again in WWII to the same effect. The rhetorical situation in both cases was not a complex one: the US government wants you to go to war. J.M. Flagg conveys this message starkly and without room for misinterpretation. Uncle Sam’s stern face and menacing finger is unmistakably front and center, sitting directly above and loud and impactful “I WANT YOU FOR U.S. ARMY.”
Everything around Uncle Sam is as minimalist as you can make it, just a blank beige slate. The only other colors on the poster are the classic red, white, and blue. J.M. Flagg and the US government want their message to be clear, concise, and impossible to miss. Given the outcome of the wars, and the massive public support for the troops involved, I think it is undeniable that this was an effective poster for its cause.