Reflection

                   Sadly, I didn’t utilize Style Academy as well as I should have, but the few times I did I found that it helped a lot. I did some of the exercises that were dealing with “combining sentences” and I feel like it helped my paper a lot because I had a lot of short awkward sentences that I was able to combine into more eloquent sentences that enhanced the overall flow of my paper. I also used the imitation exercise a little bit in an attempt to keep the same feel to my paper throughout the same thing. I put a twist on the exercises in my paper and identified the tone of voice that I had used and tried to imitate that in later paragraphs.

Style Academy Imitation Exercise

Original: Many may say “But wait, those choosing to live in these housing arrangements agree to live by these standards when they sign their contract.” This is a true statement, but the issue is said contract including the requirement in the first place. Whether or not an apartment is “BYU approved” means nothing to a student from UVU, but because these apartments are labeled as “BYU housing” a long list of rules such as dress code, curfew, etc. come along with it with no regard as to where you are attending.

Imitation: Many say “Michael Jordan is the best basketball player ever to play the game.” That may be a true statement, but we also have to look at LeBron James when we consider the best players. Whether a player played in the 80’s or in the 21^st century means nothing to a true basketball fan. But because of the classic mindset of many people, when they are asked who the best player is, they say “Michael Jordan” with no regards to some of the newer more talented players in the league.

                  I still feel like I struggle a lot with using the specific rhetorical devices in GASCAP. I was able to state my arguments and give reasons as to why I thought that way, but I had a hard time backing them up with different rhetorical devices. So in the future I hope to be able to better use those different devices that we learned about in class and from our readings to be able to not only state my arguments but to also be able to back them up. The section of GASCAP that I feel that I used most in my paper was the “P.” I really made an effort to connect with the audience that will be reading my paper and I tried to allow them to feel the emotion that comes along with our freedoms being taken away. A good example in my paper is the ending. I talked about our own freedoms and how they came to be whether it was religious freedom, or normal freedoms in our country. By doing this I hopefully was able to help them feel the emotions (gratitude, pride, etc.) that come along with freedoms and with the call to action, they will be more likely to be willing to do the same things that others have done for them in the past. How that all relates to the “P” is that as humans we feel indebted to others when we find that they have done things for us, kind of like a moral code. All in all, it depends on the person and whether or not they feel that way, but generally as human beings we try to treat others as we are treated. So in an attempt to trigger that emotion and moral within others I brought up some things that those in the past have done so that we can have certain freedoms.

Best Conclusion to a Movie

            An incredibly effective conclusion to a movie is the ending in “Inception.” The whole movie is based in confusing settings and you aren’t exactly sure what is going on for most of the movie. It goes in and out of different dreams and the dreams of dreams, etc. But by the end of the movie you think you have a really good idea of what is going on and the main idea behind the movie until they drop a bomb on your whole way of thinking. The final scene depicts a top that is continuously spinning which tell you that it is taking place in a dream, when the audience was led on to think that they had been out of dreams for the last portion of the movie. This causes the audience to second guess everything that they have put together in their minds about the plot, settings, characters, etc.  

                                                                     Effective introduction

            The most effective introduction that I could think of is in the talk “His Grace is Sufficient” by Brad Wilcox. Brad begins his talk by telling a story of a conversation he had with a girl while working at BYU. I personally liked it a lot because of how I was able to relate to it so quickly. Because the student is a BYU student having questions about how to receive forgiveness because of all the mistakes she has made it was really easy to relate to her and it caught my attention very quickly. In an attempt to win over the listener, he took on a very comfortable, easy-going attitude that was very non-threatening.

                                                       His Grace is Sufficient

A BYU student once came to me and asked if we could talk. I said, “Of course. How can I help you?”

She said, “I just don’t get grace.”

I responded, “What is it that you don’t understand?”

She said, “I know I need to do my best and then Jesus does the rest, but I can’t even do my best.”

She then went on to tell me all the things she should be doing because she’s a Mormon that she wasn’t doing.

She continued, “I know that I have to do my part and then Jesus makes up the difference and fills the gap that stands between my part and perfection. But who fills the gap that stands between where I am now and my part?”

She then went on to tell me all the things that she shouldn’tbe doing because she’s a Mormon, but she was doing them anyway.

Finally I said, “Jesus doesn’t make up the difference. Jesus makes all the difference. Grace is not about filling gaps. It is about filling us.”

Seeing that she was still confused, I took a piece of paper and drew two dots—one at the top representing God and one at the bottom representing us. I then said, “Go ahead. Draw the line. How much is our part? How much is Christ’s part?”

She went right to the center of the page and began to draw a line. Then, considering what we had been speaking about, she went to the bottom of the page and drew a line just above the bottom dot.

I said, “Wrong.”

She said, “I knew it was higher. I should have just drawn it, because I knew it.”

I said, “No. The truth is, there is no line. Jesus filled the whole space. He paid our debt in full. He didn’t pay it all except for a few coins. He paid it all. It is finished.”

She said, “Right! Like I don’t have to do anything?”

“Oh no,” I said, “you have plenty to do, but it is not to fill that gap. We will all be resurrected. We will all go back to God’s presence. What is left to be determined by our obedience is what kind of body we plan on being resurrected with and how comfortable we plan to be in God’s presence and how long we plan to stay there.”

Christ asks us to show faith in Him, repent, make and keep covenants, receive the Holy Ghost, and endure to the end. By complying, we are not paying the demands of justice—not even the smallest part. Instead, we are showing appreciation for what Jesus Christ did by using it to live a life like His. Justice requires immediate perfection or a punishment when we fall short. Because Jesus took that punishment, He can offer us the chance for ultimate perfection (see Matthew 5:48, 3 Nephi 12:48) and help us reach that goal. He can forgive what justice never could, and He can turn to us now with His own set of requirements (see 2 Nephi 2:7; 3 Nephi 9:20).

“So what’s the difference?” the girl asked. “Whether our efforts are required by justice or by Jesus, they are still required.”

“True,” I said, “but they are required for a different purpose. Fulfilling Christ’s requirements is like paying a mortgage instead of rent or like making deposits in a savings account instead of paying off debt. You still have to hand it over every month, but it is for a totally different reason.”