Logical Fallacies

Hasty Generalisation Fallacy

Example: 1) My friend from XXX School is very ugly.

2) All students from XXX School is very ugly.

How technology affect the way we study? (SEE)

Nowadays, the modern and high-technology gadgets that I used aid me in my learning and help me to learn things more efficiently. For example, I could use computers in class during lessons to research online for more resources. That really broaden my knowledge and it really helps me in knowing more stuff outside of the textbook and developing my independent skills. I could also use my IPhone to go to Safari from periods to periods and even check my mail. That will really help me in my learning process as I could have easy access to the internet to check out the difficult words. As such, all the modern and high-technology gadgets helps me to be able to have easy access to the internet, and that allows me to learn more efficiently, with a variety of search engines and websites online.

Description

The soldier was sitting down, his whole body rigid. His shoulders were very tense as his hands gripped the barrel of the M16. The soldier looked like he just had a shock of his life. His wide-open eyes stared right straight, as still as a statue. His mouth did not curl in any form, as it shows his expressionless expression looking at something that caused this kind of terror. He had a black moustache. His body posture shows that he was in a dilemma after seeing something horrifying, as the helmet suggests that he was in the middle of the war. He had probably seen something during the war that caused this kind of reaction, a totally hopeless look.

The soldier’s clothes were ragged and it suggests that he had gone through tough moments during the war. Apart, from the helmet and the rifle, the soldier had no other means of protection, and it’s probably the reason for his state of shock. He could hardly protect himself and his welfare and safety had probably come across his mind when he encountered other comrades being killed. Apart from the appalled look, it can also symbolizes loneliness and sadness. In the picture, the soldier is all alone, probably because the other comrades were being defeated, and it’s all witnessed by him.

The soldier’s expression also displayed a sense of sadness and hopelessness. From the soldier still face, he must have encountered some shocking incidents, and his bulging eyes let the reader pity him. The soldier looked like he’s in a pathetic state, alone and only a few means of protection, and also witnessing something terrifying. The soldier also had a tight grip onto the rifle, and it probably suggests that he was very afraid.

In conclusion, the soldier’s posture, expression and his clothing suggests him in a state of shock after witnessing something terrifying in front. It also brings out the effect of pitifulness and sadness.

Caffeine

Caffeine

Caffeine has a beneficial effect on the body as it makes things more efficient. It stimulates the central nervous system, alleviating fatigue and increased wakefulness. For example, I drink coffee every morning during breakfast and the effect really shows for the rest of the day, as I’m more concentrated and focus. However, when I forget to get the cup of coffee, I will get rather sleepy and could not focus easily. As such, the caffeine really helps me to keep alert and boost my energy for the rest of the day. Therefore, when I’m more focus and awake, I tend to do things more efficient.

Expository Writing - Do we still ned heroes?

Nowadays, we do not need heroes anymore. This is because we should depend on ourselves and not rely on others. We could also believe in the wrong hero and learnt the wrong values. Last but not least, our choices of heroes could be easily influenced.

First of all, I think we do not need heroes as we should be independent and not rely on others to help us. This means that we tend to rely on the heroes to get us out from helpless situations and not using our own ability. For example, when I was Secondary 1 and I asked my 7 years old cousin why was he not doing his homework, he replied that Spider-man would come and help him complete the homework. The response by him suggests that people will tend to misinterpret that heroes will come to their rescue as they are great and powerful. This will develop the sense of irresponsibility in us and whenever we faced challenges or difficulty, we will have the mindset that heroes will come and help me, and thus, becoming more and more lazy. Therefore, we do not need heroes anymore as we should learn to be resilient and depend on ourselves.

Secondly, we do not need heroes and there will be this risk that we picked the wrong heroes as our role model and we learnt the wrong values. For example, in the Muslim world, Osama bin Laden and his like still have a widespread heroic appeal. As we all knows, Osama is a terrorist and possessed the wrong values. Therefore in this case, the Muslims who believed in Osama and his actions will actually be believing in the wrong hero and get the bad influence. Thus, we do not need heroes as we could have the risk of learning the wrong values and no one is there to correct us.

Last but not least, our choices of heroes could be easily influenced. For example, the administrators of the Barron Prize for Young Heroes polled American teenagers and found only half could name a personal hero. Most of them named Superman and Spiderman. Therefore, it is clear that our media make it all too easy for us to confuse celebrity with excellence. More than half the students who gave an answer named an athlete, a movie star, or a musician. One in ten named winners on American Idol as heroes. From this example, we can see that nowadays, media and technology could lead us to be influenced in our choice of heroes. Students that chose Spider-man were most-probably amazed at his superb fighting skills and matrix in the movie, even though he was just a fictional character. Therefore, they had learned from the wrong hero. As such, we do not need heroes as our choices of heroes could be easily influenced.

In conclusion, I think that we do not need heroes as we should depend on ourselves and be capable of handling difficult situations. We could also be easily influenced and learned from the wrong heroes, thus it best not to have a hero but to depend on our very own capability and principles.

TowerHill Workshop Reflections

Today, I attended the workshop regarding the book published by Hwa Chong Institution – Towerhill. After attending the workshop, I realised I had learned quite a lot of things form the editors of the book – Towerhill. The original title is actually “Parnassus”, which is the hilltop home of Greek Muses, and the home of music, poetry, learning. However, it’s rejected due to the fact that it is too hard to comprehend.

The book, TowerHill, is a book that collates and pieces of writing like poetry form our very own Hwa Chong students. Most of them are from seniors like 2 or 3 years back. The front cover of the book comprises only black and white colour. The editors of the book decided to choose the theme black and white as it looks very elegant and simple. And it really does. The font used is just normal magazine fonts.

The book is actually split up into 2 sections, the first talking about culture and traditional elements, whereas the second section talks about a new era, a progression towards the future. The editors explained that they wanted to create a natural progression from past to present, an improvement of the writings of HCI students. It is also represented by the clock on the person drawn on the cover page. I realised that the theme that the editors displayed is very meaningful. The natural progression is something new and I learned from the theme and the clock that in whatever we do, there will always be times we will look back. It is the time when we will ponder upon our own actions and reflect, have we done the right thing? What had I done that is beneficial to others? We also have to think out of the box and constant improve ourselves, which is why we live for, to always improve ourselves.

That is also one of the obstacles that we had to overcome when we published our writings. When we published our work, we always faced the same fear – Will our works be mocked at? Will people laughed at my works? When we think along that line, it’s probably a sign that we have not done our best. We should always put our best foot forward and strive to our very best. Therefore, when even we ourselves are not confident of our work, how do we expect others to admire it? Even though sometimes we had tried our very best but still get laughed at, we should look at it in a positive way. It means that we still had room for improvement and we should be lucky that we get the comments from all the readers. It’s also a platform to allow the readers to learn from the excellent writings.

Speaking of excellent writings, I had a few glimpse of the book and I realised that though the entries are by students from HCI, they are excellent as their poems manage to catch my attention and also bring out the theme successfully. One of the poems (I cannot remember the name) speaks about the culture of Chinese people dying off and I think it had succeed, especially the last sentence, when it speaks about not the clothes of the people, but they themselves. From the writings, we could actually learn the different figurative language used and applied it to our Language Arts. We could also get our inspirations from the writings there, to inspire us to write our own poems, and who knows, we might be the next “Towerhill”!

I also think the workshop is very meaningful as we not only get to know more about the book, but also do our part in lending our hand for the Japanese. The book is sold at $10 and the money collected will be used to help the Japan crisis. I think that it is very worth it as we can do our part to display our kindness, and at the same time, get a book full of excellent writings, isn’t that killing two birds with one stone?

One of the main aims that the editors attempt to reach is not to achieve polished and bombastic writings. They just want to make it simple for the readers as they think that elegance words are not all for books. I totally agree with that. Some of the books just make full use of difficult words, so as to make it look or sound “professional”, which I don’t think is the case. I think that we write to express not impress, and the aim of our writing is to actually let the reader enjoy and indulge in our readings, to experience our feelings we had at that time. We should not just impress the reader with profound words when the reader does not even understand the book. Beauty and significance can too be shown from even the simplest expressions. Therefore, I think simplicity is the best, just keep the sentences short and sweet and I believe it can be a good book too.

From this workshop, I had indeed learned a lot of writing techniques, such as the elements of simple and elegance, and also the passion behind the editors. A short yet meaningful workshop indeed!

Do we still need heroes?

We do not need heroes nowadays. Heroes are people who are there to help us when we are in trouble or in difficult situations. However, we will become over-dependent on others if we do not tackle the situation ourselves. In order to become more resilient, we must challenge ourselves and not rely on the “heroes” to lend us a helping hand. For example, one could not possibly always depend on heroes when they faced a difficulty such as in academic. One has to pull up his socks and buck up himself. Thus, I think there is not a need for heroes nowadays as we should really use our own ability to solve the challenge and from there, learn to be resilient, so that in the future, we would be more capable instead of always waiting for heroes to arrive.

Comic Series

Reflection about comic books series

Recently, I read about the comic, “Death Note”. It had actually been made into a movie a few years ago, but the comic’s plot is still the best in my opinion. In the movie, due to the fact that there’s a lack of time, the plot and the conflicts in between was little. However, in the comic, the plot gets a little more interesting.
The comic is about this young, smart teenager who picked up a notebook from a Shinigami (Death God). Anyone’s whose name was written in that notebook shall die. The young man, Light, then use the notebook to kill the criminals to achieve a world of peace and justice and he himself believes in justice. However, according to the law, there’s mass murder and was illegal. Many police officers could not explain the cause behind the sudden death of all criminals one by one, thus they invite the detective, L. L was a very, very intelligent detective that could crack important cases within days. His identity was unknown too.
Throughout the story, the conflict and the tactics used between Light and L was interesting, as the two genius started to versus each other. The plot get even more interesting and attractive when there’s a second notebook dropped, followed by a third…
It was a brilliant plot, speaking about the ugly side of the world, and also the different smart tactics. An excellent comic indeed!

Book recommendation

Recently, I read the book Inkspell. Earlier in my post, I introduced the book Inkheart before, and this book Inkspell is the second series to Inkheart. Personally, I enjoyed the book a lot as the book used very interesting language to describe the characters. The author’s detailed description of the setting was also very commendable.

I also liked the characteristics of every unique character, such as Mo’s ability to read characters out of the book and Dustfinger’s ability to make fire and play with it around his fingers. The plot was also very interesting with twists here and there, capturing the reader’s attention.

The book challenged my vocabulary, as the terms that they used were quite profound , especially when it comes to describing the setting. Therefore, the book also in turn broaden my vocabulary as I look up the definition of words I did not know when I came across them. If possible, I would definitely introduced it to my friends, as the book was really magnificient.

Link: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28195.Inkspell

Prejudice that lead to war

Prejudice can actually lead to war between parties that actually prejudiced against each other. For example, one well-known example of discrimination based on prejudice involves the Jews, who have endured mistreatment and persecution for thousands of years. The largest scale attempt to destroy this group of people occurred during World War II, when millions of Jews were exterminated in German concentration camps in the name of Nazi ideals of “racial purity.” From this example, we can see that prejudice can actually lead to war as the parties that are discriminating each other will start a conflict and eventually lead to war. As such, prejudice can lead to war as the misunderstanding and the conflict between the two parties get deeper and eventually lead to a war.

Letter to the Japanese victims

Dear Takumi,

I have just recently heard of the devastating news that Japan got struck by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a tsunami afterwards. My heart skipped a beat when I heard of the news. It was really devastating and I really hope that all will go well.

I then thought of writing this letter of encouragement to you, my dearest friend. Though in your last letter, you mentioned that your parents were not found yet, I would like to send my dearest regards to you. Continue to hang on there, and I believe, that sooner or later, you will see the glimpse of hope.

Please continue to fight for yourself and maintain optimistic. I would just like you to know that you still have me as a friend, whom you can seek help from. My school and other organizations have been trying their best to raise funds for the victims. Though you might not be able to accept immediately the fact that your parents might be gone, please do not be demoralized. I believe that you would still want to live on, even better than before.

From what I know, the Japanese government is also trying their best and they try to seek refuge for all the victims. Please do not be despair but instead, showing the determination that the Japanese victims all the while had been showing us. I believe that you can make it, and I believe that you should. Live on, and strive on, as your parents must have hoped that you succeed too.

All this are futile without your perseverance and determination. I, as a friend, send you my warmest regards and wish you the best for your future endeavors.

Yours Sincerely,

Sheng Xiang

Experience on Project's Day

Experience of Project’s Day

Last Tuesday, my group and I went for the Project’s judging Preliminary Round. When it was our turn, I was slightly nervous, as the groups that presented before us were fantastic. What’s more, there were seniors in the same judging room, and I was afraid of embarrassing myself in front of them. However, I calmed myself down by telling myself that I can do it and trusting myself.

When we began on the first slide, the audiences and judges were very attentive, and that gave me additional boost. I also try to avoid the glances of my seniors as that will make me nervous. When it’s my turn to present, I just present it normally and naturally.

In my heart, I heaved a sigh of relief after my slides are finished. However, my heart was still palpitating over the questions that the judges might ask. To my surprise, some of the audiences understood our idea and they help us to explain our concept to the judges. What a relief! However, there were still some questions that we were unable to answer and we were told to improve on those areas.

After presenting, I realised that I had indeed improved from my Sec 1s Project’s Day Judging. When I was Sec 1s, I need a script, however, for this year, I just had to understand the concept and the words just automatically came out. I think it was a matter of experience and also effort. Therefore, I learnt from this Preliminary Round, that no matter what, we had to understand the concept ourselves and be confident in everything we said. I also took away the lesson that we should take pride in everything that we do. Last but not least, I learnt that the presence of seniors should not be a hindrance to us, but should be something to spur us to perform better in front of them.

K-pop

In my opinion, I think that the source is quite accurate. The topic that I searched is K-pop and the link is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-pop.

The reason why I think it’s accurate is because all the other sources also had roughly the same information about K-pop. Also, based on personal experience, I also agree with some of the information listed, such as the importance of K-pop and it’s development really depended a lot on online and internet such as MVs posted on Youtube or even Facebook. Moreover, the information present is all from other credible sources.

Overall, I think that the article is not biased as the sentences and phrases that they stated is not sided or criticizing any person. It’s just trying to spread the information of K-pop and stating the mere fact. For example, though the article is stating that K-pop is a very succeeding industry, the tone used is not arrogant and it’s just letting the reader knows how successful K-pop is. Also, the source is very detailed as it not only gives a brief description of K-pop at the start; it also gives exact figures and countries where it’s influential. The source also gives some examples too. Overall, I think the information provided is very detailed and accurate.

UBIQ -- The Mysterious Magical Aerosol Spray

UBIQ -- The Mysterious Magical Aerosol Spray! The spray that answers all your dreams and aspirations! UBIQ – The Mysterious Magical Aerosol Spray is a type of spray that makes your black hair grows back in a second! Amazing yet true!

According to our survey, 100% of the customers were satisfied with our product, and they come back with black shiny hair to buy more! So what are you waiting for, grab your money and buy 1 now! Hurry while stocks last, buy 2 get 1 free! It’s available at all stores, and test of product is available too! Why bother to stay bald and depressed where you can get a new lease of life? Hurry, 1 for $9.90!

Online Lesson - Expository Writing

In my opinion, I agree with the statement that "racial slurs should be illegal". When one discriminate's another race, they are violating human rights. It is another form of prejudice and the victim has all the rights to report the case. It also hurts the victim mentally and racial slurs should be illegal and banned.

Reflection

I personally witnessed a case of racial slur before when I was in Primary school. One of my friend insulted his group member by calling him a "nigge*". When I first heard of it, I don't understand the meaning of the word. However, the matter was taken seriously when the victim report the incident to the teacher.

The teacher then explain to everybody the seriousness of the incident and that the possible consequences we may get if we were to continue discriminating when we grow up to the society. Though not all of us understand her words, we could sense the seriousness of the matter and in the end, the student that said the word got demerit points.

After I grow up, I slowly began to understand my teacher's words and her intention. She did not want us to get into trouble after committing all the stupid acts. Thus, from this incident, I learnt a lesson as a bystander that acts of discrimination should never be taken lightly as they are a form of insult to other race and it violates human rights. I also learnt that we should report cases of racial slurs when we witnessed one to prevent and stop all the discrimination in the current society.