Cooling+II+GD

=__**The Control of Nature: Cooling The Lava II**__=  In McPhee’s article “The control Of Nature. Cooling The Lava-II” we find a well formed division of writing style. In this article McPhee makes the events of the volcanoes, and what he experiences, interesting to the everyday reader by using a lot of imagery, and relating his experiences very fluently. This helps one to identify with the subject matter and helps to hold our attention. In these parts of the articles (as he switches periodically) McPhee really understands that there are going to be people who are reading his article that aren’t necessarily going to understand what he is talking about, nor be interested if he just lulls on about the science of the volcano. Instead McPhee brings a more personal experience to the article, and the reader, to captivate them as they read. In this style of writing uses a lot of humour and switches in between different topics regarding volcanoes in order to make sure the reader does not become bored. The other style in McPhee’s article is one of intellectual facts, almost as if he is tricking the reader into taking an interest using the style mentioned above so that when he or she reads something they don’t understand they will have a great enough interest in the subject to go outside of the article to understand what is being said within. In this way McPhee is very clever in also hiding these terms and sentences in areas that almost make one skip right over them without notice but leave a thought in the back of the mind. I also found myself in this trap of his construction. I was very intrigued by this article as I enjoy geology, be that as it may, I too found terms and sentences that struck a chord with me that made me have to go to an outside source to understand just exactly what it meant. I found that this mixed style of writing works very well and perhaps in the next paper I right where my readers are supposed to take an interest I may also use this technique. So, once again McPhee has shown to me that he is a very capable writer and I understand why there are many fans of him, and also why I have found myself in a class devoted to him as a writer alone. In this article he writes about the conflict between Man trying to control nature and sometimes being overcome, two opposite forces, so I find it almost ironic that he would use these two styles of writing within this article, almost to further drive his point. Just as the regular reader reads and unknowingly submits himself or herself to the science and terminology behind the subject, so too must humanity sometimes submit to nature and her forces rather than trying to control them, perhaps in this comparison and dualism McPhee is really saying that we should try to understand these forces rather than control them. I chose this article to elaborate on because of the initial response to it. As I said earlier I do take an interest in geology and therefore the title of the article and the paragraph below drew me in. The short description of the article tells of how the article at first glance is focused on the destructive power of a volcano, which is true it is focused at certain events where volcanoes have destroyed villages, but in the later pages it more so discusses the nature of volcanoes and the people who study them, as well as a description of McPhee’s own experience at one of these volcanoes. However, one thing I did notice regarding the short response to the article was that they writer assumed that in this destruction there were many human casualties, when in further inspection of the article tells the reader that in Hawaii there is only one volcano related death per year. So we can see that this article has more meat to it than the first page eludes to. I found this article very intriguing and would be interested in reading the rest of the series, and this may not be entirely for the purpose of furthering my geological knowledge but possibly to explore more of McPhee’s writing styles.---Garrett Derrah