HW32: Hello Riverbend
The Foreward (writen by Ahdaf Soueif) and Introduction (writen by James Ridgeway) to Baghdad Burning are basically giving us a background and an introduction to the book. The Foreward tells us what to expect to read about. “There is, naturally, a fair amount of politics in this book.” (page viii) Soueif seems to feel very strongly about this book. “Baghdad Burning makes painful reading. It also makes enjoyable - even fun - reading. It is certainly necessary reading.” (page ix) The Introduction is more in depth. We learn that the book is writen by a young woman known to us “Riverbend”. She writes a blog that she calls “Baghdad Burning” and describes it as “Girl Blog from Iraq”. The Introduction goes on to give us a sections on the Background, The Gulf War and After, The 2003 War, The Puppet Show, and Liberated Iraq. The Puppet Show is about what Riverbend thinks of the American Government. It is interesting to see what an outsiders thinks of our country. To be completely honest, I have mixed feelings about the war in Iraq. I have followed what is going on with the war, however, not in depth. It was interesting reading about the background, etc. I feel like reading this book is going to be very informative and I look forward to reading more.
on April 1st, 2008 at 11:27 am
Good work on HW 32. If you were summarizing a text for an essay, I’d recommend writing more in your own words about the content of the text, though, rather than relying quite so much on quotes for your account of the foreword and introduction to the book. And for the MLA in-text citations you don’t need “page”, just the author’s last name and the page number itself– (Soueif ix) or just (ix) if you’ve already mentioned the author’s name in the sentence.