Essay #15-Caves and Deserts: Life in the Extreme

Caves and Deserts are center stage in the video series Planet Earth, produced by BBC and narrated by Sir David Attenborough. In the episode Caves, the cameras shine light in places where there has never been light before. Caves comprise 10% of the earth’s surface and are among the least explored places on earth. They contain [...]

ProctoreSimone Workshop Draft#2

   1. What does the author do particularly well? Be specific.  You did a great job at paraphrasing and eliminating some of your quotes in this draft.  I also found it much more fluent with good transitions. 2. Ask the author for one particular concern that s/he had about the draft. Examine that area and [...]

Response #14- Big Names Willing to Make Big Changes

It is amazing how a well written article can help a person to understand something they knew nothing about to begin with.  That is what Kate Connolly has done with her article “German blue chip firms throw weight behind north African solar project”.   Kate Connolly’s writing is easy to read, easy to understand, and lets [...]

Essay #14-Green Guide for Everyday Living: Small World Changing Ideas

National Geographic’s website, Green Guide for Everyday Living, offers helpful information and advice on becoming greener in nearly every area of our lives. Topics range from seasonal, home and garden, parenting, travel and transportation, to food.  The site also includes a green guide blog. In classic National Geographic fashion, the website presents this information in [...]

Response #13- If They’re Doing it, Why Aren’t We?

“City of the future” by Carolyn Fry shows that a city can run on renewable sources.  This article is filled with proof of just that.  The author describes the Western Harbour development in Malmo, Sweden, which is working toward its goal of 100 percent locally renewable energy.  The article discusses several ways in which the people [...]

VanDerMeer Workshop Draft 2

Only hitting the points that have changed since the first workshop: Overall 1. You turned all of your quotations into paraphrases which makes the points stronger. 2. Is there anything in particular you have questions about? Thesis 3&4. Thesis is the same—good on all points. Content 5. Meets the word count—over 1500. 6. I give it an extra [...]

Response #14: The Last Frontier for Oil

In, “Oil Exploration Can be a Boon to Alaskans and Environment,” Don Young clearly exercises his view of opening up new oil revenues in specific regions of Alaska. He does a good job of convincing the reader that he is right, too. For someone who has never been introduced to this issue, Young is very [...]

Response #12- Is Biofuel the Lesser of Two Evils?

Rebecca Buckman’s “Who wants my biofuel?” discusses the hopes and disappointments of Imperium Renewables, which is a biodiesel plant at the port of Grays Harbor, Washington.  Buckman’s stand on this issue is clear in her writing, biofuel is not the answer.  Although she presents many facts associated with Imperium’s plans and failures, she includes several [...]

Response #15: Solar Africa

The ideas that pour from environmentalists’ minds seem to be genius. “German blue chip firms throw weight behind north African solar project” by Kate Connolly explains one of these interesting ideas. Massive solar energy plants will be built in various desert regions in Africa to produce and transfer energy to Europe. Connolly mentions one critic [...]

Response #11- The Truth Really Does Hurt

The film “King Corn” by Aaron Woolf, Curt Ellis, Ian Cheney, and Jeffrey Miller is a surprisingly honest documentary about the corn industry.  After finding out from Steve Macko of the University of Virginia that their hair was made up of mostly carbon that originates from corn, proving that corn truly is in almost everything, [...]