Response to the Presentation of Fiction Group

       Last week, our group began to prepare for our final presentation about how our fiction group members devoted ourselves into the Lying Cotton Review. Our group members had a meeting to discuss about which specific part each of us was responsible for the presentation. Zoe and Debbie are the presenters; Susan and Jo are responsible for writing the speech; I am a designer to create the     infographic and Prezi slides. 

      For creating the info graphic, I  collected the statistics of total submissions we had read and how many submissions each of us had read. From total 50 submissions, our group finally chose 6 submissions to publish, and each of them was edited by three members in average. Besides editing the submissions , we did other jobs including email editing, email sending, giving feedbacks, writing and submitting our own work. 

     Furthermore, it was a kind of difficult process for me to use Prezi because I has not used it for many times, thus I spent a lot of times on being familiar with it. I put selfies of all group members and the images of our jobs. According to other members' content, I modified it many times and also sent them to revise it. Following are two images that show my work.

Response to the Electronic Literature

       In todays’ class, we have the discussion about the electronic literature. Our group think that it’s not true that electronic literature is just hypertext essays. Yes, in some way, it is regarded as the hypertext essays. We click some places which lead us to other places. For example, some stories have many links to the explanation of difficult words and terminology to make readers understand the content. We can always click the authors’ names to find their information. However, some literature works are not equal to the hypertext essay. Some stories are collected in the stand-alone website, and does not have any hypertext. There are many new forms of electronic literature appearing rather than hypertext essays. For instance, many websites present the stories or poetries in Flash or other platforms. Some authors attempts to protect their ownership so there is no link in their works. The electronic literature now develops a lot. It always has interactive and collaborative part that allow the audience to comment on the work. 

       There is no denying that the electronic literature has some differences from the print works. Electronic literature has many visible advantages. It is more searchable, we could look over it through many devices including computers, phones or any tablets. Furthermore, online-reading have the function of memory, so we can continue reading the content where we stop last time. Online-reading also contributes to the environmental protection. 

       By contrast, the electronic literature has detriments. It is harmful to people’s health. It causes the risks of ownership, and sometimes there are some technology problems. 

The Ending of Killing Alec

        He climbed out of the hole. He really was beautiful. We admire him. We exhaled smoke again, slowly this time. Time was standing still for a moment, and then Anje burst into tears. “No, we haven’t actually dated,” Anje sobbed. “No, we cannot kill him. I cannot bear to lose him.“ Silence again.

       “Anyone of us could not bear that, but he cheated us. Our poor Alec cheated all of us,” I broke the silence as I saw Alec jumped into the hole. It seemed that his body, his words and all of his memory would gone, and gone so far. A sentimental feeling rapidly twisted my heart. 

       “Let’s vote,” said Tiffany. She was still smoking, and smoking with frown. Silence again. “Maybe we should give him another chance.” She put out the cigar and stared at all of us waiting for our answers. 

       Caroline bowed her head whispering, “Yeah, he is my love Alec.”

       “The most hateful thing for me is being betrayed by someone. I cannot endure that he love other women at all. Let’s bury him, “ Marlena replied. 

       "Whether or not he will die, we all love him, and still love him, right?” I began go back to the car as the result was obvious. Alec didn’t need to die. 

       “Hey, ladies. Game is over. I let you love me, I let you find me, I let you kill me, and I bet you won’t let me die. I know you, all of you, and that’s my life, “said Alec. We did not notice when he came out the hole again, and we did not realize that he ran far away. He run so fast to another car, and escape. He waved us goodbye. 

       This is my version of the ending. I don’t think Alec need to die because in the process of deciding Alec’s death, those five women are always jealous for each other and compete to win Alec’s love. They all love Alec very much. In addition, the description of the Alec before is a little, which makes this figure mysterious. The audience may wonder why Alec takes part in the discussion of his death and why he does not go to another place instead of Florida. This ending makes Alec more complex, and release the emotion of audience to a certain extent. 

Response to Editing of Killing Alec

       The narrator and other women including Caroline, Anje and Tiffany find that they have common boyfriend Alec, who has been cheating on them, so they decide to kill him. They decide to have a manhunt that Alec will be killed if they find and catch him. They found him and another woman Marlena in Florida, and tell Marlena the truth. Eventually, five women drive Alec to the swamp, and decide to bury him in the mud.  

       What is working:1. The story arouses my emotion effectively. The setting is quiet interesting, strange and exciting. It’s weird that four women and their common boyfriend have the meeting to discuss the way of killing, and Alec is not scared of his death at all. All the women hate the man, but love him so much at the same time, which make me feel curious about the progress of the story-telling and the result of Alec. 2. I love the plot because it is complex with the conflict between “love” and “kill”. The narrator and other women decide to kill Alec because of his cheating, but the implementation of the killing takes a long time. They care so much about Alec from the details in their discussion and behaviors. The complexity is particularly apparent when they smoke filling with sorrow in front of the hole.
       What needs to be fixed: 1. There are some confusing moments that I want to figure them out. Since they all love Alec, Why do those woman want to carry out the way of killing Alec instead of other ways to punish him? Why does Alec calmly accept his death? What’s the role of Marlena in the story? Do they really bury the Alec in the hole? The story can be continued and added more information. 2. The story is progressing so smoothly and successfully without twists and turns. From my perspectives, it will be much more fun if adding some plots such as the conflict between those women and the resistance of Alec.

Second Work of Appropriation

       The original image I choose is the Portrait of Innocent X created by the Spanish painter Diego Velazquez in Italy during 1650. From the title, it’s obvious that the figure in the image is the pope Innocent X at that time. The expression of the pope is serious, august, determined, and a little bit cattish. There is a strong contrast between his red shawl and white rocket, which makes people feel a sense of stateliness. The red background also reflect the solemn atmosphere of religion and papacy. In ancient Rome, pope has very strong power to control people. Many people think the Innocent X is the ugliest man in Rome and he has a very ill temper. 

       In the new image, the face of the pope is replaced by U.S president Obama. Obama is laughing happily closing his eyes and showing his white teeth. Although he is a president who have very high social status and reputation, he looks very friendly, kind and approachable. His face subverts the serious face in the original image. The new image builds the close relationship between Obama and people, and it also shows his moral character. 

Response to the definition of love

        The word “love” has various concepts. It may refers to strong positive emotion of regard and affection, and may refers to the warm attachment and devotion to something. Also, it means the issues with sexual desire, attraction or sexual activities. According to the story Killing Alec, Alec is dating with five women at the same time. The love in the story is about the sexual and romantic love, but not the love between families and friends. If the love is about the sexual and romantic love, does one person just can love one person, or one person can love more than one person at the same time?

       In my opinion, it’s possible for one person to love more than one at the same time despite of moral issues. The first reason is that we always love many people in an loving friendships and family bonds, which has the same principle as romantic love. The need of love emotion will not decrease if we have already loved others. Second, although many people in many places are bonded with the way of monogamy’s, there are still some places using the non-monogamous pair bonds or polyamory. Love is not an objective that we can describe accurately, it is unrealistic and complex, so nothing is impossible to the love. 

Response to the art of editing

       As one of the general editing staffs in our publication, it’s important for me to know the art of editing to make sure that the good journal could be published successfully. There are three types or steps of editing: substantive editing, copy editing and proof editing. 

       Substantive editing fouces on the structure, content, clarity and language such as the use of metaphors and similes. This type refers to the establishment of goals, identification of audience, guidance, fill of blanks and the elimination of repetition, which helps author deliver clear and coherent writings to the target audience. 

       After finishing the substantive editing, copy editing is required to read many times because the step is concerned with the grammar, spelling, punctuation and style. In the class, I have understood a lot of common editing errors. For example, authors may use a plural pronoun for a singular antecedent.  From the specific sentence states, “This factory provides their employees many opportunities”, we can observe that “their” should be replaced by “its” because the subject is singular. 

       Completing the two types of editing above, we should proceed the proof editing which is focused on the typographical error and miscellaneous mistakes. 

       Through these three types, we need to have frequent communications with authors to improve the quality of the writings as much as possible.