The Giaour

The Giaour is a poem written by Lord Byron in 1813 and it tells the story of a white man getting revenge on his lovers' murderer.  It begins by talking about how there are no more heroes any more like there were during the early Greek civilization.  Next is a scene with a fisherman eyeing a white man (the giaour) on a black steed racing along the shore.  Next it tells how the giaour finds Hassan, his lover's murderer and kills him.  By the end of the poem the giaour says he doesn't regret what he does and will only forgive Hassan if his love wakes back up from the dead.  In class we discussed whether or not we thought the giaour was actually a hero.  Many said he wasn't but a few said that he had similar characteristics of a hero such as courage.

Arguments

We have discussed different types of arguments in class and they include stasis theory, argument of fact, argument of definition, proposal argument, and arguments of evaluation and causality.  Stasis theory is where you come up with certain questions to come to a point where you can argue a certain issue.  Arguments of fact are factual arguments meant to debate whether something exists or if claims made are true.  Arguments of definition main purpose is to argue the main claim of a definition or specific supporting details.  Arguments of evaluation and causality is meant to ask whether a series of events has plausible similarities or differences; basically evaluating the arguement.

Attributing Sources

In class we talked about the correct way of citing sources, paraphrasing, and using quotes.  We talked about of couple of examples of people who got in serious trouble for using other people's work and claiming it as their own.  One of them was Jason Blair who was a journalist for the New York Times and in 2003 he was found with plagiarism and fabrication in his writings.  The other one was Dr. Hwang Woo Suk, a South Korean who was found for fabrication in his stem cell research.  Another thing we discussed is how we could see why they would do these thing but it doesn't justify their actions.