Teacher's Feedback on my Summary

Summary of "Europe already has one foot in the 'Japanese' deflation grave"

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in The Telegraph of October 23, 2013 analyses the risk of deflation for the Eurozone.

According to the author, Europe is at risk of deflation which would cause the debt in the affected countries to rise. This would be devastating for countries like Spain or Italy that are already having serious debt issues. Their chances to stabilize the national debt decrease sharply with every percentage point inflation drops. Furthermore, austerity measures are widely unpopular in these countries, making it even more unlikely that they will ever be able to achieve a balanced budget.

Evens-Pritchard thinks that a rising inflation rate would prevent deflation from happening, but Germany wants inflation to stay low, because a low inflation rate helps their economy in the short run. However, if deflation settles within the Eurozone, it could soon spread to Germany as well. The author states that the Club Med allies, including France and Italy, should unite in the European Central Bank’s governing council and force Germany to accept a higher inflation rate of around two percent. Instead of imposing counter-measures against deflation the European policy leaders seem to hope for a decade of global growth to help them solve their debt-crisis.

Here's the version that incorporates my teacher's feedback:

Summary of "Europe already has one foot in the 'Japanese' deflation grave"

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in The Telegraph of October 23, 2013 analyses the risk of deflation for the Eurozone.

According to the author, Europe is at risk of deflation which would cause the debt in the affected countries to rise. This would be devastating for countries like Spain or Italy that already have serious debt issues. Their chances to stabilize the national debt decrease sharply with every percentage point inflation drops. Furthermore, austerity measures are widely unpopular in these countries, making it even more unlikely that they will ever be able to achieve a balanced budget.

Evans-Pritchard thinks that a rising inflation rate would prevent deflation from happening, but Germany wants inflation to stay low, because a low inflation rate helps their economy in the short run. However, if deflation settles within the Eurozone, it could soon spread to Germany as well. The author states that the Club Med allies, including France and Italy, should unite in the European Central Bank’s governing council and force Germany to accept a higher inflation rate of around two percent. Instead of imposing counter-measures against deflation the European policy leaders seem to hope for a decade of global growth to help them solve their debt-crisis.

Group Essay: EU-Russia Relationship

Here's the link to the group essay I wrote together with Andrina and Stefanie:

http://andrina-suk.blogspot.co.at/2013/12/group-essay-eu-russia-relationship.html

Pecha Kucha Presentation: Maltese Language

Before the Christmas break, my partner Anita and I did a Pecha Kucha presentation on the Maltese language. I had never heard of Pecha Kucha before this semester, so the first thing we did was to find out how such a presentation is supposed to look like.
Here's how it works: you create a presentation consisting of 20 slides. On each slide there is a picture, but you don't write any text on it like you probably would in a classic Power-Point presentation. During the presentation, each slide will be displayed for exactly 20 seconds.

We started off by looking for the pictures for our presentation. When we were done with that we began writing our text. It turned out to be quite difficult to write 20 short texts that would be about 20 seconds long when read out. We had agreed that I would narrate the slides with even numbers and Anita would do the odd ones. As soon as we were done writing we sat down with a stop watch and read our texts out aloud to check if they had the appropriate length. Needless to say, we had to make a lot of changes since most texts were either too short or way too long.

While giving our presentation, our biggest problem was - once again - the very narrow time frame. A few times we had to leave things out towards the end, because otherwise we wouldn't have been able to finish in time with the slides. Despite the huge stress factor inherent to this type of presentation, I think we did a good job. Pecha Kucha was an interesting experience, but if I had the choice I probably wouldn't use this presentation technique again. I prefer the traditional style with less time pressure.

Here's the link to our presentation:  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1rTkhdULyVZmnsERQcKOMLAwwLZYEHzJQ_EfVbSmbpFE/edit#slide=id.g17886b2dc_015

Progress on my Academic Paper

The topic of my paper is the relationship between the EU and Russia. The exact title is "How has the Diplomatic Relationship between the EU and Russia Developed Since 2008?" It has to be 1,500 words long and right now I'm about halfway through.

Luckily, I've already researched my sources before, so I could start writing immediately. Well, after a little reading, of course. At first, I pasted the introduction I had already written before into my new document and created a temporary bibliography. The first actual paragraphs I wrote were the ones on visa liberalization, because I had a good source for this chapter and because I have personal experience with Russian visas.

The only serious problem I have encountered yet is quotation. There's an ITAT guide on how to quote correctly, but it's actually more confusing than helpful. I quote some official websites of government agencies and private organizations and there's nothing in the guide on how to quote them, at least nothing that I have found.

Apart from my quotation-problem, my paper is progressing quite well. I'm optimistic that I won't have any trouble with meeting the deadline and I hope that my rather shady quotations won't cost me too many points.

Do We Have a Freedom of Unpopular Opinion?

A&E's reality show "Duck Dynasty" has recently gotten some unwanted publicity. For those who don't know the show, it's about a Louisiana family who owns a duck-hunting business and consists of quite unique characters. I have never watched a whole episode myself, to be perfectly honest, because I don't feel that it would be the best way I could spend my time.

What has drawn my attention to this show is the recent controversy about Phil Robertson, one of the stars of the show. He was suspended by A&E after making anti-gay comments in an interview. Read for yourself:

"It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.”  -Phil Robertson


First off: I, personally, totally think that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, to have children, and to enjoy the same rights as heterosexual couples. But that's just my opinion and I respect the fact that there are people who don't share it.

The United States is a free country in which each and every one should have the right to express their opinions freely and without fear of consequences, however unpopular those opinions may be. For A&E to punish somebody for making use of their constitutional right of freedom of speech, is just plain wrong. Even worse, it's an act of pure hypocrisy. After all, they gave a show to a family that is "known for [...] their religious views" according to Wikipedia, and he didn't even make his comments on the show, but in a separate interview with GQ Magazine. Were they seriously surprised that a redneck duck-hunter living in the Louisiana swamps might not have an all too favorable view of gays???

Dear A&E executives: If remarks like the ones made by Mr. Robertson are against your station's policy, then don't freaking hire people who are highly likely to make them!

Were the above remarks offensive? Hell, yeah. But they were less so than some made by certain politicians. Robertson stressed that he was just stating his personal opinion and he also expressed incomprehension of the subject on his part, which - if you ask me - further weakens his statements.

Although I strongly disagree with Mr. Robertson's views on homosexuals, I disagree even more strongly with any infringement of the freedom of speech, and I'm glad that the suspension of Phil Robertson has been lifted after a few days.

English Pronunciation

Learning the correct pronunciation is a vital part of learning a language. While I can say that I'm happy with my fluency in English there are a few pronunciation-related things I still have to work on.
When I was in the US last year, nobody actually doubted that I was an English native speaker, but they weren't so sure about where I might come from. Most people guessed either England or Canada.

In San Francisco my then-boyfriend and I went into a small shop and talked to a salesclerk. When asked where we came from, my boyfriend replied "Austria." The clerk then turned to me and said "You're not. But where are you from? England?"

A few days later an Australian, whom I met in LA, told me that I make the letter "v" sound more like a "w", which I know is something I really have to work on. I strive for an American accent, and my ultimate goal is that the next time I come to the US nobody will address me with "Canada, eh?"

In order to achieve my goal I have been taking closer looks at some English pronunciation websites. One of the videos there I found very helpful was about the difference in pronouncing "v" and "w", which helped me a great deal. I also looked at videos made by Rachel Smith, but I have to say that I didn't find her methods to be particularly helpful to me. I prefer Amy Walker's videos, because she shows you where the sound are made in your mouth and I think she explains that pretty well.

Pronunciation – V & W · engVid

Here's the link to the V&W video I mentioned above, it's from another pronunciation site I found pretty good. Enjoy!

Summary Critique

SUMMARY OF EUROPE ALREADY HAS ONE FOOT IN ‘JAPANESE‘ DEFLATION

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in the Telegraph of October 23, 2013, discusses the aspects of
the European Debt crisis while suggesting potential pertinent solutions. He dissects this
economic dilemma by providing a wide range of specific examples to expose its nature.
Evans-Pritchard proves that such a crisis is not preliminary by illustrating his article with
examples of events such as the American Revolution and the US agrarian revolt of the late
20th century, which according to author were induced by the economic policy errors. These
errors are being committed even nowadays.
Accordingly, the risks of deflation are highly underestimated, particularly in low debt
countries. While the inflation has been subsiding, there has been an upsurge of deflation. If
the latter exceeds 300%, severe consequences are to be expected. The Eurozone countries
are on the verge of experiencing the Japanese-style deflation.
Moreover, the symptoms are already there but attempts to eradicate the deflation problems
are not undertaken. Although, there are potential solutions such as forcing Germany to
accept inflation, the country is tentative to do so, due to its strong economy. Therefore,
apathy is chosen with a hope for a salvation by the next global growth.

My Critique:

I don't think that this summary is particularly good. It starts off very well, though. 

While I really like the first two sentences, I think that the rest of the first paragraph is fluff. The American Revolution and the agrarian revolt are just briefly mentioned and are not important for the message of the text at all. 

I also think that the author should have described the effects of deflation. They just go on and on about how bad deflation would be for Europe but don't explain why. "[...] severe consequences are to be expected", yeah but what consequences??

I don't believe that "moreover" is the right linking word to start the third paragraph. I wouldn't have used a linking word at all, but if the author wants to use on "furthermore" would be a better choice. I also wouldn't have written "with a hope for" but rather "in hope of".