Intro Questions

1.       Exposition and Argument is a class dedicated to building connections between different disciplines. Learning how to combine ideas to form new ones is important for people to build upon past thoughts and to innovate. Regardless of major, the whole point of going to college is to learn so that one can innovate and teach the next generation.

2.       As an engineer, it is better for me to spend my time working on science, mathematics, and engineering concepts. My future job will be spending much more time on understanding properties of materials than on writing papers about abstract concepts.

3.       While I will be spending not a lot of time on writing for my job, the time that I do will be very important. Explaining concepts to non-technical people well will help me to raise through the ranks in my career. Using this class, I can build my communication skills so that I have an edge later on.

4.       By writing out ideas and reexamining them on paper, one is able to rethink the rationale of that thought and either build upon it further or throw it away to start the thought process all over again to create a better stream of thought. Also by reading other people's ideas, one is able to build their own thought process and expand upon the reading as a base to their own ideas.

5.       The whole point the authors are trying to make their readers understand is that one needs to look “…for a larger coherence behind all the individual details…” (Miller and Spellmeyer xxxi). They want us to connect the distant ideas they present throughout the book.

6.       A "shared horizon" is the thought process by which two seemingly very distant ideas can be connected and used to build on one another. By building on two distant thoughts one can create a new thought by using that "shared horizon".

7.       The authors mention the concept of "New Humanities". This is the idea that "old" humanities courses are no longer relevant in today's multidisciplinary society. Centuries old books are not just the only source of human knowledge. Reading modern literature can also be used to flesh out the "old" humanities into the "New Humanities."

8.       Using this class, one can build their skills to write and think in new ways. Rethinking old ideas can bring about new ones. By writing out ideas one can rethink their own ideas and refine them to innovate and improve the next set of thoughts.