Hons First yr. writing skill

What is Story?

Story is a particular kind of narrative that produces a particular kind of pleasure in the listener or reader. Aristotle listed its essential components over 2000 years ago: an interesting character with weaknesses and strengths confronts a problem that tests the character's ability to recognize and overcome his limitations, and his efforts to do so create new problems. If he fails, it's a tragedy; if he succeeds, it's a eucatastrophe. In either case, the ending feels "just" to the listener/reader, in terms of the character's own qualities or lack of them...it is the character and the character's actions (not mere coincidence or divine intervention) that brings about the final result.

The pleasure listeners/readers receive comes from the tickling of some of our hard-wiring in the brain. First, the "interesting character" engages our innate interest in people--most of us are endlessly curious about at least some of our acquaintances. We want to know what they're doing and why they're doing it. We make up our own narratives about them, about their motivations. In a story, we're allowed inside someone else's head, to see things from their perspective. Second, we have an innate sense of justice, and the intellectual capacity to connect action and consequence. The outcome of Story satisfies both the ethical sense of justice, and the intellectual grasp of causality. Third, we have an innate interest in the unexpected--in surprises--and a well-constructed Story provides them in both characterization and action, in order to produce that desirable combination of pleasures at the end.

Some people thinking Story is "mere entertainment" and that fiction, properly, should be "more than just entertainment." They don't think readers/listeners should be entertained. They devalue Story and would uncouple character and incident from the plot structure of Story. I think they're wrong...because Story contains more than "mere" entertainment along with a satisfaction that nothing else can provide. Because Story, by its nature (and our nature) is not boring--entertains the reader/listener--it can carry--does carry--other things along with it. It is a way of experiencing the other (place, time, person) and making sense of it; it is a way of asking questions and suggesting answers but leaving the reader/listener free to keep asking, keep thinking, keep feeling.

M.H

an essay on Facebook for the students of Hons First year

The advantages and disadvantages of using Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social networking site of all time. The popularity of Facebook has increased drastically. Within 6 years Facebook has reached more than 1 billion users and still growing rapidly. Nowadays Facebook has become very important part of our life. It is helping us in many ways and also harming us in some other ways. The use of Facebook could be very useful if any kind of addiction is avoided. This article contains full details about the pros and cons of Facebook in our daily life.

Advantages of Using Facebook

# Facebook is free and it's one of the best medium for communication. You can send message , start a video call, upload photos and videos for free.

# Facebook lets us connect to different people from anywhere in the world, because almost every people these days are familiar with Facebook .This gives us the opportunity to know more about their culture, values, custom and tradition.There is something called "pen pal" where motivated people used to make relationships with other foreign people, by writing regularly to each other via post mail. Time has changed and now people can contact with their "Facebook Pal" instantly, and more frequently. These relationships sometime gets serious and might end up in Marriage also.

# Facebook is the most appropriate tool for finding Old friends. When friends go away to any other place, we often don't get the chance to communicate with them. But now Facebook gives us the opportunity to communicate with our Old friend very easily without any cost. Surely, it is going to make you feel happy to see your old friend sharing some happy photos from another part of the World.

# We can share our feelings and what's happening around in our daily life through Facebook. We can also get feedback from our friends about their reaction toward our feelings. It is the best medium to share your feelings and thoughts with others. You can share your achievements to get some appreciation, or you can share your sorrows to get support from the generous friends.

# Facebook has good privacy setting which gives you the option to maintain privacy according to your wish.

# Facebook Fan pages , groups , events etc are getting popular day by day. Facebook Fan pages & groups are very handy for promotional activities. This is why almost each and every well known Brands has a Facebook Fan page and they are investing lot of money to get more exposure to their core Business

# You can use Facebook groups to connect all your close friends together. You can also maintain the privacy of the group by making it private. It also has new features like group chatting, notification, file sharing etc. These features would help the members of the group to stay connected.

# Facebook email is very useful too. Facebook now offers us an email address to receive email outside of Facebook such as, Yahoo, Gmail, outlook and Hotmail. The email address is given based on the user name of your Facebook ID. For example, if your username is "DingDONG" , you Facebook email address shall be "DingDOng @ Facebook.com". You can also receive files attachment through Facebook email.

# Facebook plays a very important role in getting latest valuable information. Facebook fan pages and users are constantly sharing many valuable news and information.

# Facebook advertising and Fan pages are very helpful for a successful marketing campaign to many business organization.

# You can chat with friends by using Facebook. The Facebook messenger application is very handy for chatting online.

# Many popular celebrity and organization are using Facebook to give regular updates to their fans. So, through Facebook you stay closer to any famous person or organization.

# Students can use Facebook for group study by creating a group only for studying. There you can share any information about your projects , homework , assignments , exams , due date etc.

# Many people are making relationship in Facebook and tying the knot eventually.

# Facebook online games are really popular and addicting. There are millions of Facebook users enjoying Facebook games and cannot pass a day without playing them.

# Facebook has thousands of application, quiz, games etc which keeps the user addicted with the site.

# We can also use Facebook as social bookmarking site. We can share our article, blogs , photo's etc to thousands of people.

# Facebook like button is connecting their user to every other website. With single like button now you can bring everything inside Facebook.

# If you have a Facebook login ID than you don't need to waste your time for registering other site. Most of the site now allows us to register instantly by integrating our Facebook account.

# Facebook is well designed! There is no fancy color or design available which distracts people. The simplicity in design and efficiency in the performance made Facebook the best Social site in the World.

What else? In a nutshell, Facebook is a full package of communication, education, entertainment and addiction!

Disadvantages of Facebook

Now it's time to talk about some disadvantages of Facebook. There are some Disadvantages of Facebook beside all these advantages. Some of the main disadvantages are :

#. Facebook is Addicting! For some people Facebook could be more addicting than Cigarette!Using Facebook for your need is actually good for us but when we waste most of our valuable time then it becomes harmful. The biggest disadvantages of Facebook is it's addiction which causes many problems, mostly because it kills our precious time.

# Fake profile and ID! Fake profile is one of the biggest disadvantage of Facebook. Now it is easier to create fake profile with a stolen picture. People often use fake profile to insult or harass someone they don't like.Teen girls are more vulnerable to these activities. There are news found that many girls are mentally depressed or committed suicide after being harassed in Facebook.

# There are plenty of groups and Fan pages out there which are being created to abuse or violate other religion , personalities , nation etc. This kind of racist disgusting activities is not acceptable in a global site like Facebook. Facebook administrator should take necessary steps against all of these abusing groups & pages.

# Many Facebook addicted couples are facing conflicts with their Facebook activities and later files for a divorce. According to a recent study, around a third of divorce filing in recent years contained the word "Facebook". The extra informations found in the Facebook are used as evidence to complete the divorce process.

# Facebook often brings bad effects on students results. Badly Facebook addicted students do not get good marks in their exams unless they cheat or way too smart for the class!

# People can stalk you and get your personal information by using Facebook. It is highly recommended not to share your personal information publicly.

# Beside students, people who works in offices wastes their time in browsing Facebook. That's why many offices have decided to block Facebook completely from their network.

# False report! Many people lost their precious Facebook ID because of false report. Facebook administrator should be careful on that.

# Facebook chat doesn't work properly. User often face trouble while chatting in Facebook.

# From different sources it is found that, Facebook can be life threatening sometimes. Many unknown people can track your activities and where you are going. As a result you can face trouble. So people should be careful in choosing friends and should try to keep their activities private.

# News also found that one mother killed her child because it was crying in hunger while she was browsing Facebook, and a husband killed her wife because she changed her relationship status. These acts are rare but could happen in extreme cases.

So from the above statement it is clear that Facebook has many disadvantages and could be dangerous at times. Every Facebook users should use Facebook carefully to minimize the effect of these disadvantages.

M.H