English Conference

On Monday I attended Panel 8 and Panel 17 of the English Undergraduate Conference. Panel 8 was a creative writing panel in which two young women shared very emotional pieces. The first woman shared her prose piece called "Silence" in which she shared what she remembered about her father and his passing when she was only eight years old. It was very touching and inspiring how she was able to share something so personal with complete strangers. The second woman read several of her works. They were all very well written.

Panel 17 was about Identities. The first of the three women to present read a paper that she wrote about how inspired she was when she saw Bill Stickland give a speech at IUP. The second read a paper that she wrote about Islamic phobia and the third read a paper she wrote about Spanish customs. The most interesting fact that I learned was during the third presentation. I did not know prior to the presentation how important family is to Spaniards and how different their customs are compared to ours.

Chapter 2: Reflective Writing

Malcolm Gladwell talks about Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen in Chapter 2 and how they contribute to epidemics. I think that the most interesting argument that he presented in this chapter is the experiment which took place during the 1984 presidential election conducted by Brian Mullen. I had never realized how much a newcaster's facial expressions could impact the way that their viewers react to the topic. It is as if the newcaster could subliminaly make you feel poorly for a canidate that you may have otherwise voted for. Gladwell collected data from experiments such as Mullen's, interviews that he conducted like his interview with Alpert, and many other sources for his research writing.

Contrasting Genres

During high school and during the summer, I enjoyed reading fiction books. Fiction writing is much different than Malcolm Gladwell's book. Gladwell's book is all about facts, statistics, and other things that are known to be true where as fictional books are stories about things that did not happen in reality. Fictional books tell a story that starts at the beginning and continues until the end but in Gladwell's book, each chapter has different examples. It is the type of book where you could open it up to a chapter in the middle and start reading and pretty much get what he is saying. If you were to do that with a fictional book, you would have no idea what is going on.

Introduction and Chapter 1 Summary

The author Malcolm Gladwell raises this issue of how it only takes a few people to start an epidemic and how the point in which something becomes an epidemic starts is called the "Tipping Point." He gives the example of how Hush Puppies were out of style in the early 1990's but then a few teenagers started wearing them and they became a trendy style which almost everyone was wearing. He also gives examples of the syphilis epidemic in the Baltimore area during 1995-1996 and the three ways that experts on the subject believe it could have started. He concludes the chapter by stating the three rules of the Tipping Point and by asking a question to get us thinking about what is to come in the book.