Burning the Midnight Oil

  We all know the stereotype. Some guy or girl abbreviates reps and sets because spelling "repetitions" is a bit outside the scope of resident brainpower and the only math they know is the ratio used to get the perfect blend on their protein shakes. For those who have not seen the movie "Free Guy" with Ryan Reynolds, you may not be familiar with "Dude" (Pictured Above). You can get an introduction here:   The Dude Well, a long time ago in a website not too far away, there was once an online argument of epic proportions. It was not magnificent in its depth or complexity, but rather for its purity and perfection in capturing a stereotype hard at work. In this argument, two bodybuilders on a forum at Bodybuilding.com  go head-to-head in a battle to calculate the number of days in two weeks. In a battle that only be described as matching the ferocity of World War II or the fury of the Blitzkrieg, these, likely musclebound, experts go back and forth trying to e...

  Making arguments can be difficult. Gathering information, presenting it in a logical manner and ultimately, getting your audience to join your side can be one of the most challenging forms of communication. The Toulmin Method is a method for making arguments that breaks down arguments into 6 total pieces that are part of 3 core parts, the claim, the grounds, and the warrant (Green 316) The example picture above highlights a simple argument and the associated pieces within the Toulmin Method. The claim functions as the core argument that writers would like their audience to believe. The grounds provide the evidence to support the argument and the warrant is the assumption that links the two together. As seen above, the other components are the qualifier, backing and rebuttal. The backing is information that further support your warrant. The qualifier helps to acknowledge any deviations or exceptions to your argument, and the rebuttal discusses other possible viewpoints.  In r...

  The date August 26, 2021 isn't likely to ring any bells in most heads. In fact, up until last year, August 26th was known to me as mom's birthday. However, anyone who was watching the news that month was likely to have heard about the "Kabul Airlift", a mass evacuation of Aghan refugees and the withdraw of the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan after 20 long years of sustained combat. August 26th stands out because it was the day that a suicide bomber detonated a suicide vest outside of Abbey Gate at Kabul Airport. This attack killed 13 US service members, along with upwards of 150 locals (firm numbers were never provided.) The podcast I chose to write about for this discussion is one that I have followed for years. It is hosted by a former US Navy Seal and discusses topics ranging from leadership to history, and anything you can imagine in between. While I could write about the podcast as a whole, a recent episode holds a lot of value when discussing communication. ...

  Since its inception, social media has been used as a way to connect with individuals or to connect individuals through space and time. It created a place where people could come together and share ideas. They could virtually meet and share schools of thought that had previously been limited due to geographic separation . A movement that had once been limited to those who would see a flyer could now be spread from coast to coast in a matter of moments. Aside from shaping a new realm for the spreading of information, it shaped how we are able to perceive information and shattered the construct of how that information was shared. How many more people would have gathered in Washington DC on August 28, 1963 if they had known ahead of time that MLK was "doing something big." How many people would have considered the facts of Watergate differently if those opinions were shaped by the outpouring of posts from their friends across the nation? Although we will clearly never know the ...