Sunday, March 30, 2014

Perks of Public Speaking

Took this picture myself....I'm awesome
This was my first time attending a session of the BYU English Symposium. It was a really good experience because I realized a lot in terms of writing papers. The speakers were very articulate in their papers and I think this added to the way they spoke on the panel. The session I attended was called "A Whole New World: Disney, Adaptation, and the Americanization of Fairy Tales" and the topics included were very interesting. The first speaker talked about Walt Disney and argued how much of the criticism aimed toward him was false and misinformed. Her points actually gave me a lot of insight on how to accurately discusses false accusations or beliefs in a way that will support a paper. The second speaker was probably the most relevant in terms of my paper concept. She discussed book and film adaptations and how the father figure image in many disney tales was portrayed differently. This was helpful for my writing process because I really paid attention to how she managed to compare all the adaptations and successfully support her thesis without going off topic. Finally, there was the last speaker who I think was the most proficient when discussing her paper. She came off as very knowledgeable and well prepared for her turn on the panel. She talked about the way fairy tales are portrayed differently in social media frames. She used the website Tumblr as her biggest example with fairy tales and their portrayals. It was interesting to hear her argument because it relied a lot on relation to the readers and their understanding of how social media works. Nonetheless, her explanation of her paper was convincing and made me reflect on my ideas.

After attending the English Symposium, I definitely think I will submit one of my papers in the future. It also made me to realize that you don't have to be an exceptional writer and speaker to be part of it. There is a way better chance of me being chosen to share at the symposium. All you need is a well done paper.

No comments:

Post a Comment