Blog #4

Part 1: This week, I only had a tutorial session with one student. She was a foreign student looking for help on her cover letter and resume. She was applying for an internship at a medical center and needed help with her papers. From what I saw, she wasn't sure exactly should be present in either of them, and was getting them confused with each other. She was placing personal experience, education, and work experience within  her cover letter while putting why she wants to apply for the position in a resume format. Her writing style wasn't very well defined or made much sense, probably due to English not being her first language. Looking at her work allowed me to understand more about what specifically should be included in each paper without crossing over too much. The cover letter needs more focus as a letter to the employer, and how to express how one personally would help the place you are applying for. The resume is much less specific to the the job one is applying for, and instead explains more personal information and experience. After explaining more of this information and what I learned from class, as well as my own cover letter and resume, the student understood more of what needed to occur and expressed she would make changes. I am starting to feel more comfortable with these tutorials, they are interesting to sit in on and also just express and exchange ideas.

Part 2:
Some video game companies and developers have taken risks to express their art, and have received several slaps on the wrists for having controversial content, which deteriorates other’s visions about how mature video games are, and thus making the art within the game unnoticed. Other forms of art depict violent scenes, sexual situations, and sometimes inappropriate material for some people, however they are rarely yelled at or considered as controversial as video games.  There are several video games, even some which are widely popular among gamers today, and are considered extremely violent, include sexual content, racist remarks, or even go as far as “‘glamorizing’ or ‘glossing over’ the real-life massacre at Fallujah” (Vega, Nora). Since these video game developers come under such pressure from the news, government, and people alike, it makes it difficult for the developers to defend their work without help or assistance from others. “Six Days in Fallujah” was one video game that never even made it to store shelves due to the controversy it kicked up, and without the defense of a video game company behind the developers, merely folded under pressure and stopped the production of the game. This game was meant to depict a real life event in Fallujah, Iraq where many Iraqi and American Soldiers fought and died. It allowed the players to experience the actual battle without ever actually being there, similar to what other art medians do. While it was meant to be somewhat of a memorial/documentary by the developers “Atomic Games,” it received lots of criticism for being too realistic, too soon and “in bad taste,” and would “disrespect those that died there” (Floyd, Daniel. “Video Games and Facing Controversy”). While movies and other media may depict similar circumstances and controversies like those presented in “Six Days in Fallujah” and many other games, one might wonder why video games like this are given lots of criticism. 

For this paragraph, I ended up using lots of active verbs and had an active voice. The active voice fits for this paragraph in my opinion because it expresses many details in a strong way. Being assertive with this idea helps the reader to understand what is so wrong about the situation I am discussing. It also tries to explain the positive nature of the game and what it was trying to do without lessening or demeaning the events that occurred in Fallujah. I feel that this paragraph needs to active verbs to get the point across more directly. I do feel that a passive voice doesn't work well for this assignment in general; much of what is important is the actions that video games face as well as the impacts they have. However, I feel passive verb usage would be good when discussing specific games more in-depth for this assignment, which I do later on. I do not have many passive verbs in this assignment, adding a few may be beneficial to express other points. Where exactly I may use passive verbs over active verbs, I am not sure quite yet. It might be better to include passive verbs in sections where I discuss a games review from other sources. 

Part 3:

Placing verbs early on within my sentences helps to express my points clearly and with more enthusiasm than placing them later on in sentences.

Sentences with verbs placed early on can express my points clearly and with more enthusiasm. 

Modifiers allow me to give more in-depth detail within my writing.

I can go in-depth in my writing using Modifiers.