Indian Epics Fall 2019

I am currently finishing up the class and I need 2 more points to get the 410 points that I need for an A. At the same time I have 13 minutes to write this post, find an image for it and post it. I think I should be able to do that because I am going to be rambling on about how I regret how I treated this course and wish I stayed on top of things. It really is not that hard to do well in this course. You do the assignments and you get full points. It was completely my fault for getting behind. There was no reason for it either. Two days ago I sat down and did like four posts and got plenty of points in like an hour or twos time. It is not that hard. Now I have 11 minutes and I am starting to panic a bit. I still have to find a image. I should use one that just says "stupid" because that is how I feel about myself right now. Instead of doing this last night like I said I was going to do, I ended up going to a party. So when I woke up this morning I remembered that I needed...

So as I am finishing up this course I thought what better last assignment than to do a reading of my favorite thing to read in this class, Jatakas. I decided to read another one from the Twenty Jataka tales because that hadsome great ones in it that I thought I would go back and read. This time around i wanted to focus on the swan kingdom story because swans are incredible and they fit perfectly in Indian epics due to how majestic but also mysterious they are. In the beginning of the story it sets the scene by mentioning tons of swans in the area. Picturing this in my head I could see cherry blossoms, a beautiful lake and then the king swan with his silver leaves lying under one of the trees. This picture in my head is what ended up coming true in the story as a new lake was decided to be built by the king and everything that I just mentioned was actually built. After this is where I get a little confused. The lake is built but the king is not at the lake. All of the other swans unde...

In the interest in time for this semester, as this will be my last reading notes post, I decided to skip to the end of the book and read the last part. Before the ending of the book, I did want to mention that this book is where my favorite Jataka is from. The story of the crane and the crab. It was by far my favorite and I even wrote a sequel to it to try and tie of any loose ends it may have had. It was a story that Buddha told, and I did not know that originally. Throughout the end of this book, there were many other Jatakas that the Buddha told, but I will not focus on those. I want to focus on when he ascended into Nirvana. The scene that is set in the story is so vivid and I can picture it so well. It talks about two cherry blossoms that are in full bloom, but some of the flowers falling. These are in full bloom even though it is not the season for them. That is just how powerful Buddha is. Ananda, one of his disciples is there and goes to comfort the Buddha, but also he is s...

Now that the Buddha has finally become the Buddha, there is still so much left to the story. To begin Part two of the book that is written on the life of Siddhartha, the first Buddha, he is still meditating under the tree of knowledge. From what is written he meditates for four weeks straight. During the even weeks he goes on these "journeys" that I assume are like astral projecting a bit. For the first journey it is a long that that takes him through "all the worlds." I think this journey would be a great way to tell a story because it never elaborates on exactly what happens, so I could go wherever I please with the story. In the fourth week he goes on another journey, but this is one shorter and he travels from coast to coast. I am not sure where exactly this is set, whether it be in India or some fictional land that no longer exists, but I am going to assume India. I think this may be a better story to tell because the journey is shorter and would be much easi...

Okay, so I did another typing test. I know it was only a few weeks ago that I did the first one, but not only am i typing lie crazy in this class, I am also typing like crazy at work. We recently have been having to enter hundreds of labels into a database. These tubes do not have actual words on them, rather they have random letters and a date on them that have to be entered correctly. It is not very fun to be typing at a computer for 5 hours at a time, but at least I am getting paid. This is why I decided to redo the tests to see if I have increased in my typing speed. I did not. I was literally the exact same on both websites and the exact same as last time basically. What always trips me up on the typing tests is that I feel the pressure and whenever I mess up I have to go back and fix it without continuing on. I know that a lot of time you can just fix it all after, but I hate seeing those red lines as I type so they need to be taken care of right away. I still think I type well...

Siddhartha (the first Buddha) had grown up a prince and was sheltered from the real world for most of his early life. He was even married before getting the explore the world outside of the palace he lived in. One day, The prince wanted to go into the city and see how the people outside of the palace lived. What he did not know is that the king ordered all of the old, sick, poor, and weak people to be taken out of the city. This was done so that the prince would not see the bad things that occurred in the world. While the prince was riding his chariot through the city he was struck with happiness at all of the youth that he saw. The people and buildings were so young and happy. He continued to ride through the city until he saw and old man come out from around the corner. The chariot stopped and the prince saw the old man. He was confused at first by the lack of youthfulness in the man. He asked his adviser if this was normal and he replied that everyone awaits the same fate of old...

For this week I decided to read more abut Buddha because I still have not come to the point where he becomes the actual Buddha. This week was interesting because it started off with Siddhartha going away on a pilgrimage away from home to learn the teachings of peace basically. However, when he gets there, he realizes that the man who is teaching him may not know what he is talking about. I was a bit confused by this because the teachings seemed like what I know Buddha for. Subjecting yourself to harsh treatments, but still being able to survive and be calm throughout them. Siddhartha did not agree with these teachings and decided to leave to start his own teachings with meditation. Eventually he came across the Tree of Knowledge and started to meditate there. This caught the eye of the King of Evil, Mara. Mara started to become afraid that he would not be more powerful than the Buddha if he continued to gain wisdom from the tree. The way Mara is described is almost like a beast, but ...

Siddhartha (the first Buddha) had grown up a prince and was sheltered from the real world for most of his early life. He was even married before getting the explore the world outside of the palace that he lived in. One day, The prince wanted to go into the city and see how the people around the palace lived. What he did not know, is that the king ordered all of the old, sick, poor, and weak people to be taken out of the city. This was done so that the prince would not see the bad things in the world.  While the prince was riding his chariot through the city he was struck with happiness at all of the youth that he saw in the people and buildings. He continued to ride through the city until he saw and old man come out from around the corner. The chariot stopped and the prince saw the old man. He was confused at first at the lack of youthfulness. He asked his adviser if this was normal and he replied that everyone awaits this same fate. The prince fell sad and returned the palace....

For the second half of the reading, I finally got to see the prince in a new light. The man who I thought was Buddha (and still was Buddha) gave me insight that the Buddha was not born without the normal thoughts/temptations of man. I have always made the comparison between Buddha and Jesus, thinking that he was always without the thoughts normal people have. This section of the reading really gave me a new view on who the Buddha is/was. At first when they were speaking of the three men who came to see him while he was going through the city, I was convinced that he was going to treat them with compassion and have something wise to say about it, but rather it was the opposite. He became sad with each new person that he saw. This is just like many children when they first experience these things. The difference between a child and the prince is that the prince was so sheltered that he was not exposed to sadness or the real world until after he got married. This made me mad at first an...

For this weeks reading I decided to read about Buddha. While it is not a traditional "epic", it makes me wonder how the story of the birth of Buddha was. My favorite part of "The Life of Buddha" was the birth of Siddhartha. The stories here are written in old English and it translates hard to read. It would be cool to write a story in this manner, but that would take me way too long and I do not think my audience would enjoy it that much. The birth of Siddhartha was very interesting to read. For some reason I thought Buddha would have been born in the winter under the light of one candle. What I read was the complete opposite. I envisioned a warm summers day with greenery surrounding a large house. Everything was so bright and vibrant. The reading even mentioned there were peacocks. The husband and wife were very interesting too. Their dynamics were like it was almost a business to birth the Buddha. At the same time it seemed like they both loved the child more th...

A family of five stand in the long line at the Mexico/US border trying to get through. The mother asks the father if he has the correct paperwork needed to cross through. They believe there will be no issue as they are only seeking refuge in the states. With anticipation they wait. Longer and longer as the sun beats down overhead. Finally, after about six hours waiting, their turn comes. The border patrol asks for their paperwork. He stares at it for a long time as if trying to find something wrong with it. Eventually he hands it back to them and tells them to pass. The children start to get excited, but the mother tells them to calm down. They are not in the clear until the border is no longer in sight. As they begin the cross the bridge by foot, they are stopped by another patrol. He tells them to come over for a random inspection. The father does not know what they are going to inspect. All they have are the clothes on their backs. The officer searches each one of them, even t...

The two sites I tried were KeyHero.com and Typing.com. I was a lot better on KeyHero at 54 wpm and 47 wpm on typing.com. I have never considered myself a fast typer, so I never know how good I should be. I also have really fat fingers, and I think that causes me to make a lot more mistakes than people that don't have sausage links as fingers. One thing that people always tell me is that I type very loudly too. I always get made fun of by my friends for always typing so loud and distracting them. I have tried to type more quietly but I do not feel like my point is getting across as well as I want to. It also goes back to the whole sausage fingers thing. They are too heavy that every keyboard they hit has a ton of course behind them. In middle school we had to take a typing class for 9 weeks. We would always get a document that we had to type and also some games to play on a software for typing. I do not remember much about it other than we always got to do our own thing whenever w...

For the second half of my reading, I read more Jataka tales from the same book as before. This is one of my favorite collections of Jataka tales so far. The first story that I really enjoyed was the Great Elephant. It brought together sadness, a great message, and a happy ending. I mention sadness because that is something that is not seen very much in Jatakas, but this one was particularly emotional. Elephants are known to be noble animals and seeing one be so distraught over the safety of man hit a heart string with me. Because I have seen elephants in real life and even bathed them, I have a close connections with them. These men were not bad men either. They were trying to escape a terrible leader. This story also parallels modern issues. There are often immigrants that travel to try and find safe refuge from their country, but many do not make it on the way. Thinking abut someone who is willing to risk their life for people to be able to reach safety is something that could go rea...

Reading Jatakas is one of my favorite things to do in this class because they are such easy reads and they remind me of all the stories that I would hear as a child. One of the stories that I read today that stuck out to me was "The Empty Lake." there was nothing of significance as far as people surprising or out of the ordinary, but I loved how it took personification to the next level. It gave things such as wind, rain, and thunder life and I pictured them in my head that way. When Mother Earth's came down to drink the water away, I actually pictured Mother Earth as a human, coming and drinking the water from the lake. When Queen Rain began to fill back up the lake with King Thunder, I saw both of them working together to try and refill the lake. If I were to write a full story with this as my source material, I would try an elaborate on the King Fish. They did not give him as much insight to him as they did the other characters. I dislike when a character is made a s...

A few months had passed since the Jackal/Lion cub was made fun of for using his voice. Many had forgotten as he had fell into the background during the games and activities that he went to. He still had the body of a lion and that was enough to stop others from continuing to make fun of him. The worst part about not using his voice is that the cub was terrified to pursue his true dream: to sing. One day the cub was running errands for his father (the lion). He had some food strapped on his back that he was carrying home and was getting bored on the long walk back home. Then, a thought popped into his head. He looked around and saw that no one was there, so he began to sing. What many do not know about a jackal's voice is that they have the most beautiful singing voice. It had been so long since the cub had been able to use his voice that is was a little hoarse, but shortly it became a lovely clear tune that his mother (the jackal) used to sing for him when he was little. Every ...

For the longest time I never downloaded the Canvas App on my phone. I think I finally did last semester as a junior. Before then I would just have it open as a website on my phones browser and look on there. I did that because on the Mobile App the one thing you cannot do is look at the averages. Because I have the toxic trait of comparing myself to others, I like to know where I stand with everyone else. Even now that I have the app, I will check when a grade gets released, but I still usually go onto the actual website so I can see the averages. It is a good app for general purposes like looking at assignment due dates and grades, but overall I do not use it much. I usually just pull out my laptop and do everything on there. I do love the layout of it though. Canvas is a great website and is very simple and easy to use. This carries over to the app so I like that. Overall it is a good app, but I do wish it would show the averages of grades.

For this reading, I stuck with the Jataka tales and realized how much I loved reading these. They feel less daunting than a whole book so the reading goes by so much faster. This week the first story I chose I did not actually like. I actually hated it because the message it had was not a good lesson and did not have an actual ending. It was the "Silence is Golden" story. It started off with a lion and a jackal having a kid together. While he looked like a lion, he sounded like a jackal. Because of this he would never speak. One time he decided to speak and he was made fun of. After that he decided to never speak again. Then the story just ends. It ended like the lesson was telling us to be ashamed of something we were born with. I get that this story was not written in 2019, but wow. If I were to write a story with this as my source, I would definitely change it to make sure that he learned how to speak up and not be ashamed for what he sounded like. As a kid and even now ...

The story that I enjoyed the most was the story of The Axe, the Bowl, the Drum, and the Diamond. It has a lot of things that I have always enjoyed. It has Castaway elements, a flying pig and even some Lord of the Flies in there, except I hated lord of the flies. To start off the story we have a character that gets stranded on an island. Typical for most stories that start in the ocean, but all of a sudden he sees something without wings flying toward him. It creates new meaning to the phrase "when pigs fly." I had always pictured a flying pig to be majestic and cute with these huge angel wings, but this pig is not like that all. It has no wings and is large and has tusks. Far from cute. The next part I am a little confused about. The pig does not even see the man on the island. He lands and basically goes straight to bed. I guess the man was hiding and then is brave enough to creep on the pig as it is sleeping. That is how he discovers the magical diamond. The next part mad...

There were two stories that stuck with me this week in the first part of Krisha's stories. I decided to watch the video versions of them because taking a break from reading is much needed at this point in the semester. The first story that was that of Krisha's Mouth. I am not sure why I liked this story because at first I thought it was pretty odd and strange. I thought it sounded familiar when I watched it but could not put my finger on why. After thinking about it for a second I realized when he opens his mouth, it is very similar to a seen in the movie IT by Stephen King (The new one). Where Pennywise (the eil clown) open his mouth and the girl who is staring into it gets put into a trance like state. I think that each character saw something similar, but rather than the evil in IT, the mother of Krishna saw the universe and all its creations. A story that could be a good idea would be a more detailed account of what she saw when she looked into the eyes of Krishna. It mus...

It was a sight to behold. Each army is on either side of the battle field. There is a silence; a calmness stretches across the battlefield. The dirt remains untouched by blood and footprints. On one side stands Arjuna, Dhrishtadyumna, Yudhishthira, Krishna, Abhimayu, an Bhima. The weather is cold so Arjuna's heavy breathes can be seen in front of his face, causing the landscape to become foggy with each exahale. On the other side stands Karna, Drona, Shalya, Duhshasana, and Ashwatthaman. Drona is ready to attack. A thumping noise begins to fill the silence. Slowly increasing in speed and volume. It is Drona's heart. Thump..... Thump.... Thump... Thump. Thump.  Thump Thump Thump. As Drona's heart beat faster, the anticipation and adrenaline increased on both sides. Finally, Drona took one deep breathe and the thumping stopped. Silence This silence lasted what felt like hours, but was only a few seconds long. Drona formed a smirk on his face making direct eye contact ...

The part I am going to focus on is the final battle. I have always been a big fan of final battles and this one feels very reminiscent of the final battle from Lord of the Rings. When I was a kid, I used to put on the movie and just watch the final battle, so when reading this story, I just replaced what I remember from the movie with the characters and description from the book. As the first few lines start you can picture the chaos going on. I see Drona flying around and destroying everything like Danerys in the last season of Game of Thrones. I see the slow motion fighting of everyone while Krishna tries to come up with his plan. They find a moments rest and you already known Arjuna is not the character to try and win a battle by trickery. Arjuna is powerful and can win by strength, but he could not do it alone. It surprised me that Drona, after all the destruction he was causing, gave up that easily when hearing his son was dead. Rather than getting angry like we often see other ...

I am semi happy with my progress. As I have said in many of my other posts, I have falling behind on reading. My goal is to get a A in this course and I think it is completely possible for me as long as I stay on top of things. I have used some of the extra credit and fully intend to keep using them whenever I have a little bit of free time. For the next half of the semester I want to try and stick to my schedule. I have not actually done that at all the first half so doing the would greatly help me out and get me that A. As far as my stories and website go, I am very happy with them. I think I have done good work so far and I want to keep that up. (Letter A. Source: Pixabay )

The comments and feedback for this course are really helpful. I am one who sometimes does not take critiques very well, but I am loving all the feedback I have been getting. Usually I do not think that college students give the best criticism, if any at all (they tend to avoid confrontation), how the feedback in this class works make it seem genuine and like people actually want you to do better. Also, giving feedback is a way to give people my own advice while also looking at how they do their stories. I have been given a few ideas myself and use my own feedback I gave them to improve my own stories. As far as the feedback I am giving students, I feel like it can be helpful, but I am not sure if they are actually using what I say. A lot of what I say is based on stylistic choices, so I am not sure if they are truly helpful. I am a very imaginative person, so when I read stories I want to be surprised. That is why my feedback often revolves around trying something new rather than jus...

As far as reading and writing goes for this course, I am struggling with the reading part. I am a slow reader in general and feel like taking the time to read a whole story takes an entire night. I know it would never actually do that but that is what it feels like. As far as the writing goes, I do not have any problems because I love writing. I also have plenty of things to say so that should not be a problem for the rest of the semester. I need to get caught up on my reading because I am quite a few points behind as far as the reading goes. My favorite writings were my first two stories. The Jataka sequel and the diary. Something about getting to make a sequel to a story allows me to continue the story how I want. Rewriting a story is boring and does not provide the newness that something different provides. For my storybook I am picking stories most people have not read so it will be new for them and also I am not retelling, but telling it from the point of view of the main charac...

( The Answers are in the comments) Riddles: What is three letters and is named after the same thing it does? A man rode into town on Friday. Three days later he leaves on Friday. How? Contrary to its name, you only wear this when it is cold outside. Without this, you would never know what you looked like. There once lived a large family. Jennifer was the mother and she was a teacher. Jason was the father and he was a farmer. Judy was the grandma and she was a nurse. Victor was the grandpa and he was a business man. Jackie was the aunt and she was a librarian. Jon was the uncle and he was a pilot. James was the oldest son and was married to Jasmine, they were both artists. Jacob was the middle son and he was a student. Jaxx was the youngest son and he wanted to be a fire. If Jaxx was 5 years old, James was 24 years old, and Jennifer had Jacob when she was 28, who in the family is different than the rest? If OU plays Texas on a Saturday and the stadium has 60,000 people...

I wanted to focus on the story of the Padavas brothers and the water riddles. I love a good riddle and I think riddles always can make a story more interesting. To start off, these brothers are supposed to be brave and smart, gifted by the gods, but they are completely dumb when it comes to being thirsty. Honestly, it could be a metaphor for men who are "thirsty" and do no think straight. If you know what I mean. Though interpreting the story in that way may not be the best idea. The fact that Nakula and Sahadeva died first does not surprise me. They did not even bother putting up a fight or even trying to answer the questions. I can understand being thirsty or dehydrated, but at least try to listen to the talking crane. There has been a few times on a hike or something where I see a pond or river and all I wanted to do is jump in it and drink all of it, but I always refrain. I am not part god, so this part is confusing to me. I love Arjuna's attempt because it matche...

Oof. That is all I can say at this point. I am currently writing this post in between classes trying to get back some of the many points I have already missed in this class. Even though I do not mean for it to be, this class often falls last on my priority list. It is definitely the most assignments in a class that I have this semester, even though none of them are difficult or too time consuming. I am a senior and am just now willing to admit that I have terrible time management skills. When something is not due, I tend to put it off until I have to do it. There was a moment last week where I went to the library with the intention on getting work done, but because nothing was actually due the next day, nothing got done. Each week I have missed at least one of the readings, and one week I even missed both. I say in my head that I am a slow reader so I never feel like I can read that many pages in hour or so that it says it should take. Rather than buckling down and actually doing it,...

Because I had a bit of a difficult time coming up with a plan for my storybook, I did some research on my topic and feel a lot better about what I have. My storybook contains three stories all from the lives of Kumbhakarna, the sleeping giant. I did quite a bit of research for my storybook introduction, so I have a plan set forth for the stories I want to do. For my first story, I want to tell the story of Vijaya and Jaya being turned into Kumbhakarna and Ravana. The main source I found was Wikipedia and it gives a simple yet still detailed enough account of what happened. The Wikipedia story allows for some interpretation about which brother was the one who influenced the other. The story also tells of the Four Kumaras  who are the cause for each of the gatekeepers turning into their characters from the Ramayana. They have the appearance of children which is why they were not allowed through the gate. Children are often tricksters so I can understand why they were not allowed t...

The Eighth Baby: They were very nonchalant about killing seven babies. It seems many of the characters follow a similar theme, with them being very nonchalant about death, yet extremely passionate about carrying on the family legacy. At first I did not think I was going to like Bhishma, but he quickly grew on me as he was sticking to his vow. Though all the things that followed because he stuck to his vow were a bit odd. The whole page about the fish smell and how a fish/human hybrid baby was born, except the only trait of a fish that she kept was the smell. It seems like for my own stories I could get a little more outlandish. I also laughed out loud whenever Vyasa said he needed a full year to prepare for sex. I had anticipated more of an emphasis on Vidura, but they chapter ended with the emphasis on the Padavas and the blind kings many sons So far this is very different from the Ramayana as so much happens in very few lines. Praying to gods seem to usually end with a powerful...

After reading the comments and thinking over it myself, my storybook plan was not much of a cohesive plan. I misunderstood that each story was meant to stand on its own, so that changed how I wanted the sotrybook to go. Below is my new plan for what I want to do for my storybook. I still want to stick to the dream aspect of Kumbhakarna. I want each story of his to be a different dream. These dreams will not be connecting to one another and one can be read without knowledge of the others. For one of the stories, I want it to be about him and Ravana when they were growing up. This way I can make my own story up, but also help tie it in to why Ravana started to become a villain and if Kumbhakarna is bad because he is bad, or because of pressure from his brother. For the next story, I want it to be about Kumbhakarna killing Rama and becoming worshiped by everyone around him. Even though I want to display Kumbhakarna in a positive light, I think this story plays along the fact that ever...

All of the gods were happy to see that Ravana was defeated and that Sita was returning home to Rama. After all Rama has went through to save the love of his life, they can finally live in peace. As the gods gathered around to watch the reunion of Sita and Rama at his house, Agni, the fire god, felt that something was off. Rama was not as excited as everyone else and Agni noticed. When Sita finally arrived she knocked on the door to see Rama answer. She began to come inside but Rama blocked her way. "Are you not excited to see me?" Sita asked. "You cannot come in because I do not know if Ravana has tainted you," Rama replied. Sita was not surprised by his answer. She turned around and left without saying another word. Meanwhile, Angi, along with the other gods, were watching this is confusion. Because of this, Angi went down to speak to Rama to clear this up. "Why have you turned away the woman you fought so hard to save?" Angi asked. Rama replied...

For my storybook, the hardest part for me will be sources. At this moment I only have the Ramayana I read, a comic book , and another book . I feel like that may not be enough sources. Because of the sources I have only containing the same story for Kumbhakarna and no real others, my plan is to make my own stories that center around Kumbhakarna's sleep. For specifically, I want to write about the dreams he has during his time of rest. One possibility would be taking other stories from around the Ramayana and insert him into them somehow. So he thinks that he has been a part of all of these stories but in the end he wakes up and finds out none of it was real. I just now thought of that idea, so I still have not decided whether I want to create my own dreams, or have them be other Ramayana stories. The main idea for this storybook would be to make them believe that Kumbhakarna could have easily fit in these stories, and are just as surprised when they find out it was all a dream. I...

(Sea of Dreams. Source: Pixabay ) Storybook

(T scene opens at the funeral of Vali. Only a few people are there. Angada (Vali's son) and Tara (Vali's wife) are standing over the grave. Only a handful of monkeys are standing behind them. Quiet sobs are heard from the monkey's, but Angada and Tara remain emotionless. Rama and Lakshmana are standing far from the crowd under a nearby tree as they watch from a distance. Sugriva stand on the opposite site of the grave from Angada and Tara with a piece of paper in his hand.) Sugriva: Growing up with Vali was difficult. Vali was strong. Unbeatable. I always knew he would be superior to me. Even so, I loved him and supported him. He would have became an incredible leader. While most remember him for his strength, few know of his moments outside of battle. When we were young, Vali and I were out on a hunt when we came across a small hut standing alone in the forest. I did not think anything of this, but Vali insisted something was off. We approach the house and knocked on t...

Vali: This has been the easiest chapter for me to read so far. Rather than stopping every few lines because I got stuck on a word I could not pronounce or forgot what I just read, I was able to fully comprehend this chapter. What stuck out to me the most was the long monologues from Vali and Rama after Vali was shot. It was very endearing and emotional to hear both sides of the story. Vali trying to stay strong and defend himself at first. He did not want to seem like he was defeated fairly, rather he was shot out of nowhere. His anger for this was present in his speech. Rama came back and defended himself, for Rama does not do anything without good reason. He knew exactly what he was doing and had even thought about it during a conversation with Lakshmana. One thing that I noticed is that Rama did not mention his wife even after Vali brought her up a few times. Even though Rama is a god, I think that some of the reason Rama helped Sugreeva was for his wife. You can feel the emotion ...

The first article I read was " How to Give Bad Feedback Without Being a Jerk ," and it was something that I felt I struggle with. When peer reviewing papers or giving feedback I often have to catch myself before saying something that makes me sound like a jerk. One of the opinions that the author gave was that if you put yourself on a level playing field as the other person, it will help you not sound as if you are superior to them. I also find myself questioning the stylistic choices of writers that I am giving feedback for and comparing them to my own. This makes me come off like I am saying that my style of writing is superior when that is not always the case. The author of this article also says that giving praise before and after criticism is not the best choice of action. Rather than giving what may be unsubstantial praise, explain why you are giving criticism. I would greatly benefit from putting this into action. The second article I read was " Why do so Ma...