blog assignment 6

In the article, The Horse Racing Industry: Issues and Reforms (Christa Kurman), the author uses plenty of paraphrases and quotations to support her main idea. One example of a paraphrase is “An industry committee lead by Mary Scollay recorded an average of 2.03 horse deaths for every 1,000 starts on dirt track (Dwyre).” This paraphrase uses numbers and statistics to support her idea. It makes the essay more convincible. Using statistics in this essay let readers feel sorry for horses, and decide to support banning the sport of horse racing. An example of a quotation in the essay is: David Zirin, a sportswriter and racing strategist, has this to say about what horse racing has become in recent years: “Perhaps all the people who pounced on Michael Vick for fighting pit bulls should turn their attention to a sport that exudes mint julep gentility, but can be as cruel as any cockfight” (Zirin).Christa uses a quotation of a sportswriter to support her main idea that horse racing industry seems “as cruel as any cockfight” (Zirin) at this time, and it should be improved, at least to treat horse nicely. She uses a quotation of a sportswriter’s perspective to make her essay convincible, and it works well, because I really agree with the author after I read her essay. All the quotations and paraphrases that she uses in the article make me believe what she says and agree with her suggestions. I can see how important quotations and paraphrases are. Their main function is that they support main idea and make essay convincible.

blog assignment 5

Chinese people believe “winner takes all, loser has nothing,” and “history is written by the victors” is widely accepted by Chinese people. Admittedly, official history is believed to work for politics. A contrast is often made between official history, which is written by winners, and unofficial history, which is written by losers. For instance, in Chinese history, every emperor was basically wise and strong since the Song Dynasty’s history, every emperor was described as a symbol of justice, and their enemies were always brutal and evil. Obviously, this official history was faked by victors. In an official history about Song Dynasty, Hui Qin, a minister of Song, is depicted as a quisling. He killed some heroes like Fei Yue, made treaty with Song’s enemy, and enacted a tax law which made people poorer. He was a totally devil in official history. However, in some unofficial history, Hui Qin was not devil anymore, he was a pacifist. He advocated peace life, he thought war could kill thousands of lives and made people homeless, thus, he argued with “hero” Fei Yue who wanted to be famous through wars, and Fei didn’t accept his idea, but the emperor did. Then the emperor killed Fei in order to make a peaceful life for residents in Song Dynasty.
In official history, winners usually deleted some information which was not good for their reputation, but still retained lots of truth. Unofficial history, however, cannot be evidence for academic research, but can support some facts. Therefore, we should have an objective perspective when we read history.