Metapost: The End of Junior Year

This final quarter, my blogging has changed in its structure and approach. Rather than dive straight into my opinions on an issue, I have organized my posts to explain the issue objectively at first and provide all the necessary information before then expressing my stance on the subject. This change I believe has been brought about by my work on my Junior Theme, in which I was required to explain an issue pertaining to the USA without expressing any opinions on it at all. The Junior Theme assignement taught me the value of empathy for the reader: assuming the reader does not know the subject and therefore explaining it to them adequately. If I do not inform my reader on the subject, it is useless for me to express my opinion on it at all.
This change in my blogging was important this quarter as I adressed some complicated subjects which required initial explanation. My post "The singularity or not?" adressed the ideas of the futurist Ray Kurzweil. Rather than arguing for or against his ideas immediately, I took time to clarify what they were and the concepts surrounding them before expressing my opinion on them: "Before continuing further, it is important to define the meaning of artificial intelligence. Currently it is split into two kinds: weak A.I., which has already been achieved to an extent, and strong A.I., which has not... ." In this first paragraph of my post, I define the difference between weak and strong A.I. (artifical intelligence), so that the reader knows exactly what it is that I am critiquing. My criticism turns out not to be of A.I. as a whole, but the idea of strong A.I. My prior explanations were important to making my post clear.
In my most recent post, "Down the rabbit hole", I once again make sure to explain the issue I am discussing. The post discusses the constant state of flux scientific ideas are in, with particular reference to the recent experimental evidence against Supersymmetry theory. To clarify my ideas, I make sure to provide an explanation of Supersymmetry and its potential importance as a theory: "Super-symmetry is a theory that relates elementary particles of one spin to to other particles that differ by half a unit of spin and are called 'super-partners'. This symmetry, if proved, would have the potential to help eliminate many known problems and quandaries in modern day physics." This brief explanation of Supersymmetry ensures that the reader understands the relevance of it to my post.
While I believe my empathy for the reader has improved, I have room to strengthen my arguments via more frequent reference to articles and sources. My post "Dreamers", which discusses the 'american dream' and its applicability to rich people, could have benefited from a reference to a dictionary definition of the 'american dream', to support my argument that its defintion prevents it from being available to rich people. Likewise, my earlier posts on the progress of my junior theme could have been made more meaningful to readers with links to sources I was using for the project. Without links to my sources, my posts were less effective in showing the reasons behind my thought processes. Overall, however, I believe my blogging has progressed well since the beginning of the year.