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Sean Huckle     9/6/16    Blog Post

            The most current definition in the Oxford Dictionary for the word “Summarize” is; “Give a brief statement of the main points of (something)” (Oxforddictionary.com/summarize).  Though this may be a very short definition, it is very to the point. Summarizing is to gather much information whether it be from a movie, an experiment, and of course, a novel and to make sense of all of it in a fraction of the words. Gaining and having the ability to effectively summarize any piece of work or spoken word is a much needed skill to have in today’s society. Every day in class (COMP-150) we summarize the readings that we had for homework and get the main points and important details of the readings. Summarizing is daily activity that we do whether we know it or not.  Learning to summarize large bodies of work will be very beneficial as we move forward through the semester because it helps us put large amount of information into a small amount of words. We get the main idea(s) and most important parts of the information gathered and use that to summarize. As well as summarizing, critically thinking is also a very useful skill as a writer and as an individual in today’s society. It’s in our nature to think and while thinking we aren’t always using our thought to the full potential. Just like all of our parents told us “Think things over before taking action”.  We are usually biased, uninformed, or left confused and asking questions most of the time. Critical thinking is the ability is to use the information from the piece of work studied and look at it from many different perspectives and also break it down for every little piece that it is. As a writer it is beneficial to be able to critically think because it allows us to add more specific details to our work and make sure that the reader isn’t left with many questions after reading the piece of work. As an individual it is very usefully to be able to critically think. As an individual we may break down pieces of work that we are overseeing and get the true essence of it for all that is it. We get the main ideas and most important details of the information by analyzing and depicting whatever it may be we need to. While learning how to critically think, we as a class have also been learning about text from all different sources such as: advertisements, social media, blogs, novels, articles, ect. As we read and analyze different forms of text, it has very much helped shape my understanding of writing and authorship. I am understanding how to write more effectively and on many different places (Blog, Twitter, writing, ect.) with authorship I am seeing more clearly how the authors have put their piece of work together and why. Such as in our very own class room, we have our Triangle that emphasizes key parts of every piece: Purpose, text, context, audience, and author.

           

            The article “Should College Athletes be Paid? Why, They Already Are” by Seth Davis mentioned in Sports Illustrated in April of 2013 depicts Seth Davis’s views about a very popular subject, should college athletes be paid or are they already being paid enough. Seth Davis is a sports analyst for CBS, a regular writer on SI.com and even has his very own show, “Courtside with Seth Davis”. To say the least, he has a lot of experience and is very dependable on the topic of sports. The article begins with addressing an piece of work from McClure’s academic journal and claiming that there is a lot of illegal recruiting, academic fraud, and notorious boosters helping sports programs. After claiming how much wrong there is in college athletics, Davis begins to depict an article by Taylor Branch that expresses how Universities and private colleges are making up to billions of dollars off of the student athletes attending the school and how the student athletes don’t receive anything for themselves.  Seth Davis strongly disagrees and says that the student athletes already receive tons of benefits and payment separate from salary.  He claims that the students can receive up to $200,000 worth of tuition along with housing, tutors, classes, and a lot more benefits on top of that. Davis argues that the gap between athletes and benefits needs to close. Also that the coaches who are wishing to give salary to their players should see how much the athletes already are being paid in other such ways.https://s3.amazonaws.com/user-media.venngage.com/297216-0d57635827c9a09454784b2a7146e7a5.jpg