Analysis of "Book Banning in the United States: The Imprisonment of Every Student's Potential to Thrive"

In the paper, the author makes the claim in the first and the second paragraphs that the book banding, which is still exsit in the shools in the U.S, has negative consequences. Since students are limited to read what they choose, they have less opportunities to expend their knowlege and think about controversial issues.
After providing a brief history of book banning, the writer comes up with clear counterarguments and objects them in the persuasive way one by one. One of the opposite voices is "the dangers of political open-mindedness". Some censors thinks that this kind of book will lead the readers expecially young adults to become anti-American extremists and hold the immoral points of veiw. The author objects it by saying the implication of removing book is more dangerous than the implication of allowing people read them. It is necessary for students to learn to think objectively so that the innovation and revolution, which are the power of human's development, are made possibly.
The other two counterarguments are about religion in education and challenging norms. The author cites some professional words or opinion to herself rejecting the counterarguments. What is more, there are many quotations from famous writers hold the same opinion as the author do.
By objecting all the possible counterarguments with the strong reasons and evidences, I think the author did a great job in persuasion.

Review of paraphrase and quotation

Example is from "The publication and Your Personal Profile"

Quatation:
"I have not actually looked anyone up on MySpace before. However I have heard cases where employers have done that and decided not to extend or rescind an offer based on what they have seen"(Allman).
In the paragraph where the quatation is presented, the author talks about many employers look up these profiles to value their employees. The reason for using quatations here from Allman who is a corporate recruiter is making the statement reliable. It is the fact accrding to someone who is in the field.

Paraphrase:
In March 2008 at the University of Delaware, eight resident assistants were forced to resign due to posted pictures of themselves drinking on their facebooks. According to the University of Delaware's Resident taking place ... it is believed that the RA's are leaders of the community and should show a good example for students (Heine 3).
The author comes up with a specific example that college students were punished because of the negative personal information that they posted online. The evident which is summaried according to Heine's book is a strong support of the statement in the previous paragraph, "they should accept the consequences of their actions". This example is very close to us and very persuasive.

Basically, the quatations and paraphrases in the essay make the statement reliable and persuasive by providing examples or conclusions from someone who is credited by the public.

Words

1. inheritance noun (QUALITY)
/ɪnˈher.ɪ.tənt s/ n [C usually singular U]
a physical or mental characteristic inherited from your parents, or the process by which this happens
genetic inheritance
A particular gene is responsible for the inheritance of eye colour.

2.nurture verb (FOR A LONG TIME)
/ˈnɜː.tʃər//ˈnɝː.tʃɚ/ v [T] formal
to have a particular emotion, plan or idea for a long time
Winifred nurtured ambitions for her daughter to be a surgeon.

3.thrive verb
/θraɪv/ v [I] (thrived or US ALSO throve, thrived or US ALSO thriven)
to grow, develop or be successful
His business thrived in the years before the war.
She seems to thrive on stress.

culture shock

Liu's feeling is quite understandable for me. When we encounter unfamiliar cultural practices, the feeling of disorientation, uncertainty, and even fear may be experienced. Though Liu tried his best to communicate with native speakers, it was hard for him to be intergrated to the American culture. The conversition between his professor and him might be considered joke as other American students; however, it was not easy for him to accept it. Lacking of confident to speak out in public as a foreigner, he desired encouragement for his "first try" instead of embarrassing reply. And his professor would never relize how difficult it is to try to speak in public among a group of native speakers when a foreigner feels bad about his language skill. Actually, it was the small thing that did not matter, but thoes small things happened everyday when he was in America. It is not hard to knwo why he was sufffering so much when he encountered the Amenrican culture.

As an international student in the U.S, I am definately suffering some of his "sad stories". I had the similar difficulties in daily conversition with the peer. When I chat with other girls and guys here, they always say some words that I will never find in the dictionary. When we talk about movie stars or famous singers, even though I know them, sometimes I may not reliaze who are they talking about, becuase I am unfamiliar with their English names.

I do enjoy spending time with my American friends here, we could also have much fun. Neverless, I still feel more comfortable to be with other people from my own country. I do not need to focus on the content of their talking, because it is so easy for me to understand; I do not need to pay attention to my and other's behaviors so much to avoid doing something unappropiate. Even though they are strangers for me as well, it is much more easier to make friends with them than Americans here. The fact is, costom that seem strange to me are considered normal and proper in American culture.

It has become increasely common for students to study abroad, but they may all have a difficult time adjusting.

Nonverbal communication

In general, there are few differences in nonverbal communication between Chinese culture and American culture. The most obvious one might be holding hands. It is quite common to see Chinese girls hold hands together walking and talking. People just think they are good friends; however, in the U.S, it is hard to see girls hold hands all the time walking in the campus, for they might be considered lesbian. On the other hand, if guys hold hands together, in both cultures people make the judgment that they are gay. The other example is "give me five". It is also be used in Chinese culture, but mostly in sports games or some particular occasion, like team competition. In the U.S, many guys do it as a way to say "hi"to their friends. To the contrast, Chinese won't consider "five"as a way of greeting.

Basically, you should look at people's eyes when you are talking to them. If you look around all the time and seem to think about somebody or something else, it is very rude. So the eye contact that shows your respect to others is the similarity between two cultures. The second similarity is body space, in both cultures, it is best to keep the distant not too fat and not to close. It is should be close enough to show your friendly and far enough to make each other feel comfortable.

The distance between public selves and private selves in China

There was a policy in my university twenty years ago that students are not allowed to kiss each other in public. It sounds ridiculous today that to write it down as one of the college policies; however, if there was someone kissing each other in public at that time in China, it would be a huge scandal.
It is known that the most distinct character of Chinese culture is implicit. People usually do not show their personal sorrows and joys in public; they tend to hide their emotions a lot, especially negative emotions. To be friendly and polite, people usually shake hands with each other, and unless being very close to each other or being family members, they rarely hug in public.
Apparently, we would all go through some strong emotions sometimes. In the past, most chinese people only share it with their husband or wife or even keep it themselves. However, people tend to show their personal emotions more quickly and easily now. Meanwhile, the society seems to be more open to accept the showing of people's privates selves.

Different "languages"

My mother applied for an account in Chinese facebook not long ago; she cannot stop complaining about how the "language" that my friends and I use makes her totally confused. I feel so sorry about it, bcause she tries to understand me better by doing it. However, the way that we are "speaking" on-line is so differ from the way my mother gets used to. Meanwhile, I start to realize how distinguishing they are that my peers' "language" and my parents generation's "language".

One major difference is that lots of new words are created by the young which our parents have never seen before. For example, "lei" is a word that appears everywhere on the web now which means something is really special or weird. It is quite a negative word that did not exist even five years ago, but now it is mentioned frenquently in unformal situation. What is more, there are tons of new words like "lei"on the web. Consequently, my mother gets trouble in understanding our messages on-line without knowing these new words which are used wide by teens.

On the other hand, the languages that my generation and older generation use in formal situation are much more similar to each other than the languges we use in less formal ones. Since traditional language and standard language tend to be more appropriate in formal situation, newly born words are less involved in formal ones.

It is believed that all kinds of languages are evolving all the time. We might encounter more various "languages" in our future.