Response to "Ha ha," he said. "Ha ha."

In "Ha ha," he said. "Ha ha." the author, Chuck Klosterman, discusses his outlook on the concept of laugh tracks. In the piece Klosterman states that there is nothing more "philosophically stupider than laugh tracks". He has a large amount of reasoning to back this up however, the main point that he was trying to convey was that the reason why popular TV shows still use laugh tracks is the assumption that "normal people don't have enough confidence to know what they think is funny". Overall, I agree with Klosterman's viewpoint, I find that laugh tracks are quite frivolous and also sort of insulting to society's intelligence. I can see the novelty in laugh tracks but essentially after about half an episode of a TV show that employs laugh tracks it starts to get annoying. It's like being at the movies with that one guy who laughs entirely too loud. It makes angry, embarrassed and just downright sad. People don't need to be told when to laugh and implementing this tactic, it makes people feel dumber. Quite possibly because their laughing so much at stupid shit that should not be laughed at...

Bibliographic Annotation

Creative Participation in the Essay Writing Process. Phyllis Crème and Celia Hunt. From Arts and Humanities In Higher Education Vol. 1 No. 2. October 2002

This article discusses a research project in which students are given opportunities to creatively explore writing. Students used a plethora of different techniques taught in a workshop. This was done in an attempt to see if aforementioned techniques would increase the overall creativity in the university’s writing and also making the students feel more strongly and apparent in their writing.

I believe this source at the very least is intriguing. That in itself makes this article useful as it presents an interesting topic and presents the reader with new and experimental information.

Overall, this article wasn’t the most helpful to me but it did have some interesting points and it taught me some things.

Richtel Article Response

After reading this article I have gained new knowledge about how technology, and the constant stream of information that people deal with day-to-day, is affecting people and how they think. For the most part I agree with this article, I have seen a drastic change in some people in my life primarily caused by technology. However,  I feel that the article presents this fact in a much more serious and grave sense then it should be. I categorize myself as one of the "multi-taskers" described in the article and yet I don't find myself unable to tune out distractions. I also know a great deal of people who are able to control their impulses to check all of their incoming information. Overall, I feel that the article had a good focus and a lot of accurate points but at this current juncture in time the issues presented have not become entirely pressing in my opinion. I also think that multi-tasking has just as many benefits for certain people as it does have its drawbacks

Introduction

My name is Stephen Powdermaker. I am 19 years old and I am studying English with a focus writing at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. One day I hope to become a writer or a teacher. Some of my favourite things to do are read, write and waste my time on the internet. Being unproductive is quite entertaining and as such I am a huge advocate of it.