My Opinions on the Podcast Serial

I just finished listening to the first episode of the podcast Serial and I have to say I really enjoyed it. As part of the ENG4U course I enjoyed it because it was a really nice change of pace from the usual old poems with cryptic language or eighteen page essay on why modern writing is terrible. Instead of having to search for deep meaning that the author may or may not have intended to include I got to instead compare a number of obvious clues on my own, with less to interpret, just analyzing two different accounts of a story.

Outside of the ENG4U class, I enjoyed the podcast for what it is, a murder mystery with no clear ending. The fact that the podcast was based on a non-fiction source allowed the narrator to just tell us the facts and let us decide on our own. The topic was interesting and captivating enough that I found myself still thinking about it when I went to sleep that night. I might even keep listening to these while I’m on vacation.

Investigative journalism to me, is much more interested when presented in the form of a podcast. The inclusion of voice acting from other characters in the story and of course, the tone of the narrator keeps me interested a lot longer than if I was just reading the same facts off of a newspaper. As someone who listens to podcasts like this while on long drives, while studying or while going to sleep, I like being able to get the information without risking car-sickness or distraction from physically reading something.

Sometimes physically reading something is nice, but for me, I need very specific circumstances to fully enjoy reading something. To fully enjoy reading something like this, I would need to be comfortable with little to no stress from outside sources, like school. The main benefits of reading to me is the ability to visualize something more easily and the ability to easily re-read a portion of text to either better understand it or to analyze it for a deeper meaning.

Ideal environment for me to read without distraction

One of the most interesting parts of the podcast, was at the very beginning. The segment on the memory of teenagers. Quick refresher: the narrator talks about how almost no teenagers can remember details of a specific day because most days are just too similar. She then relates this to Adnan’s inability to remember what happened on the day of the murder. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday, much less very minor details like where I was at a specific time several weeks ago. Teenagers just don’t often have good memory.  Since pretty much all the evidence against and for Adnan is based on the accounts of other people. Just because someone testifies against me and I can’t remember what I was doing two weeks ago, could I end up in jail? Listening to the section on memory again, and thinking about it after hearing the rest of the podcast, it scares me how poor our memories are.

 

When I first listened to the podcast I thought about how the victim’s family might feel about this. The victim’s family may or may not like the idea of a story like this being so popular. On one hand, they may feel like the podcast does the victim justice, her story is being told and it may add even a little bit of closure to their death. On the other hand, hearing about the victim’s death again and in such detail may bring back bad memories of the time of their death and may also attract unwanted attention to them or other characters in the story since, as far as I know, no names have been changed in the podcast.

Consent of the victim’s family is not needed to create the show but I feel like the show would be of better quality and therefore more likely to be aired with cooperation from the family. If the family does cooperate, clearly they are okay with the popularity they might receive from the show.

Bit of a short post today. I really enjoyed listening to this, mostly because of how it made me feel. It makes me feel confused when I try to decide Adnan’s innocence for myself, it makes me feel afraid when I think about how he could be innocent and still in jail. Is anyone else legitimately considering listening to some more of these? I might have just found a new timesink for this summer.

Do We Really Need ENG4U?

To get into the great majority of University programs we need ENG4U, despite English being borderline irrelevant in programs such as sciences or math outside of creating understandable and comprehensible resources like lab reports and even these won’t require the levels of perfection that we’re required to show in our Grade 12 English courses. While I don’t think people going into specific fields like the ones I mentioned earlier should need to take ENG4U, I believe that they should still be required to take at least College English. I do think that ENG4U should be a requirement for fields where interpretation and context are important like Law.

I personally, am going into sciences in post secondary and what I’ve noticed so far through lab reports and case studies is that we try to simplify things as much as possible and spend much more time on the actual material and information we are trying to summarize than the grammar and detail required in ENG4U level essays and thesis’s. However, the quality taught in ENG4U allows these lab reports to look much more professional but due to the time it takes to proofread and comb through text for errors, this level of quality should, in my opinion, be saved only for the biggest, most important assignments like a semester-end thesis for your Master’s Degree. Another reason why ENG4U isn’t that helpful for science papers is because the way that many scientific papers are formatted are unlike anything we will learn in this course, using  informal structures such as lists and to a lesser extent, images, in formal papers. A good solution for this would be to introduce a “scientific English” course which would be used to teach students considering sciences as a career to properly write scientific papers.

But is there still a point to ENG4U?

In fields like Law, the way things are worded are extremely important because even a slight misconception can cause a large, borderline irreparable issue that can easily be exploited such as in the case of the Idaho “Zone of Death” where crime is essentially nonpunishable due to a loophole. I think that, to go into a field like this in post-secondary, ENG4U would be beneficial and

The “Zone of Death”

should definitely be a requirement. The level of precision required to be a lawyer or to help make laws is so much higher because of the need to be interpreted in one way only, where the general principles of most sciences prevent multiple interpretations. Another field where English is very important is History. What happens in history needs to be recorded in a clear and firm way to prevent common misconceptions over time such as in the case of Thomas Edison inventing the light bulb. He simply patented it but a good majority of people believe that historically, he invented it. This was likely due to an English error where a Historian confused patenting with inventing.

To summarize, I think that ENG4U has a valid reason for existing but it is just not for everybody. I agree that some University programs should require a student to take ENG4U but I disagree that all students should need it. A test in English proficiency is already standard at many Universities and requires a student to demonstrate the skills to get there ideas across at an acceptable level. I do believe that English in High School should expand to cover writing scientific papers through a new course and I also believe that a more modular English program could lead to more success in Post-Secondary for specific fields.

G. (n.d.). General Format for Writing a Scientific Paper. Retrieved from http://www.instruction.greenriver.edu/mcvay/b100/general_format_for_writing_a_sci.htm

Wolfe, K. (2017, July 19). The Zone of Death. Retrieved from https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/yellowstones-zone-of-death

Spector, D. (2012, June 03). 9 Common Misconceptions About Modern History. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/misconceptions-about-history-2012-5#thomas-edison-didnt-invent-the-first-lightbulb-5

English Language Proficiency Requirements. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://welcome.uwo.ca/admissions/admission_requirements/english_language_proficiency.html