Impact of Virtual Reality On Humanity

                        Osvaldo Tejada

                          City College

    James Mulvenon’s research paper, ““TRUE IS FALSE, FALSE IS TRUE, VIRTUAL IS REALITY, REALITY IS VIRTUAL”: TECHNOLOGY AND SIMULATION IN THE CHINESE MILITARY TRAINING REVOLUTION” consists information of how virtual reality can improve the Chinese army. Mulvenon’s argument in this paper is that virtual reality is efficient for the Chinese army in order to operate in a relatively resource-constrained environment. Similarly James E. Haywoods article, “The Technology of Virtual Reality” discusses how virtual reality can be used for JFACC (joint force air component commander) in battle management for air campaigns. This can help the pilots experience an airborne battlefield, which allows them to make better decisions during real fights. Lastly another article that’s similar is “Virtual reality therapy set for a real renaissance” by M. Mitchell Waldrop. This article discusses how virtual reality can help people with mental problems like PTSD and phobias. Virtual reality can be used for therapy for certain mental issues, unfortunately not all like paranoia. Although each article is talking about similar subjects of virtual reality, the authors demonstrate and present the information to their unique audiences in different ways.

    In each article the purpose is aimed towards a similar but somewhat different audience. In the article “Virtual reality therapy set for a real renaissance” by M. Mitchell Waldrop, the author, is talking about using virtual reality to help people with mental health issues, specifically soldiers with PTSD. A war veteran that has been fighting in the Afghanistan war can use virtual reality “to help veterans confront and overcome horrific experiences that left them with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)” (Waldrop, 2017). This is one of the audiences the author presents in their writing. They also talk about using virtual reality to support safe testing for pilots to be comfortable with flying planes.The fear of flying is one of the nightmares that virtual reality can fight against since practicing in the real world means “taking patients to the airport, getting them on board—it’s expensive and time-consuming. And insurance won’t pay for me to fly with them” (Waldrop, 2017). This use of virtual reality is so useful for specific reasons like this because nobody is endangering their lives. This shifts the audience towards people in jobs like those mentioned in the report. Similarly, in the article “Improving the Management of an Air Campaign with Virtual Reality”by James E. Haywoods, the author, is talking about using virtual reality to allow JFACC to experience air campaigns on a battlefield. Virtual reality “may have the potential to allow the JFACC to experience the air campaign as it unfolds over the battlefield, thereby allowing for better decision making as a result”(Haywood, 1996). The audience that’s targeted in this article are pilots that are in the air force which is similar to Waldrop’s article. Lastly, in the article “TRUE IS FALSE, FALSE IS TRUE, VIRTUAL IS REALITY, REALITY IS VIRTUAL” by James Mulvenon, the author is talking about using virtual reality to improve the Chinese army training and operations. This article is similar to both of the other articles mentioned in this paragraph because virtual reality is being used mostly for military related matters. Virtual reality has made the Chinese army to pursue “technology-assisted training because of the efficiencies it offers to an institution operating in a relatively resource-constrained environment” (Mulvenon, 2008). The whole article is based on the audience of the Chinese army using virtual reality in their operations. All three of the articles have similar audiences that relate to military operations. 

    In each of the articles there is a different level of readability of the writing. In M. Mitchell Waldrop’s article, the format and writing seems easier to read because of the images and the purpose of using virtual reality is understandable. Waldrop explains that virtual reality can be used to cure “recurring nightmares, un-controlled rage, alcohol and drug abuse, suicidal thoughts, and more”(Waldrop, 2017). These examples make the report readable because the audience knows what the author is generally referring to, which is mental health. Similarly, James E. Haywoods report uses images of diagrams to explain what they are writing about. For example, “The generations of HCI prior to VR were of type ‘A’ A VR system removes the distinction between the computer system and the user’s environment (type “B”)” (Haywoods 1996). The author is using the diagram to explain what they mean by saying that virtual reality and environment correlate with each other. However, in James Mulvenon article “TRUE IS FALSE, FALSE IS TRUE, VIRTUAL IS REALITY, REALITY IS VIRTUAL ” there is so much writing and no pictures to make the article more interesting. On the other hand, Mulvenon did split up paragraphs with different sections on how virtual reality can improve certain trainings like, “Reality simulation training… Systems integration training… Fuzzy authorization training…”(Mulvenon, 2008) and etc. Even though the author didn’t use any images to make their purposes clearer, they still managed to give multiple examples and use different categories to break up the information.

    Lastly, in each article there are different categories and sections splitting up the paragraphs. In the article “Virtual reality therapy set for a real renaissance”  the paragraphs are split into few sections like one paragraph talks about gaming, another paragraph is talking about therapy and it all relates back to virtual reality. Furthermore, the author changed the color for the names of the sections into light green so it can pop out to the reader. Similarly in the article “Improving the Management of an Air Campaign with Virtual Reality” the paragraphs are also split into a few sections. However it split into different categories of challenges/weakness, strength and definition of virtual reality. The author made the name of each section bold and bigger font. On the other hand, in the article “TRUE IS FALSE, FALSE IS TRUE, VIRTUAL IS REALITY, REALITY IS VIRTUAL” there’s many sections because the article is about the chinese army so there’s many formations and tactics being explained and compared with virtual reality. Similarly to the 2nd article, this article uses the bold feature to make the names of each section pop out to the reader. However, the article still looks like it’s cramped up with a lot of wording.

    In conclusion each article has mostly similar ways to present their work to their unique audiences. The use of images and diagrams are the best ways these authors did in their articles to make their readers engage and understand what they are talking about. Lastly the division of paragraphs into specific sections makes the reader know what’s going to be spoken about in the paragraph. 

References 

JAMES E. HAYWOOD. (1996). Improving the Management of an Air Campaign with Virtual Reality. Air University Press. https://www-jstor-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/stable/pdf/resrep13866.8.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A205aabb013bbdff7e56489b818d86685&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&origin=search-results

James Mulvenon. (2008). TRUE IS FALSE, FALSE IS TRUE, VIRTUAL IS REALITY, REALITY IS VIRTUAL”: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College. https://www-jstor-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/stable/pdf/resrep12107.6.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A602ef86480730c1ba1ae67e153ac0404&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&origin=search-results

M. Mitchell Waldrop. (2017, September). Virtual reality therapy set for a real renaissanceAuthor(s): M. Mitchell Waldrop. National Academy of Sciences. https://www-jstor-org.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/stable/pdf/26488016.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3Acd539ffbe84c4cfb05e1cae955d103a6&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&origin=search-results

REFLECTION

To start off, my first draft of my Rhetorical Analysis was more of a summary of each article rather than an author analysis. In my first body paragraph I was writing about the different information each article had about virtual reality which wasn’t the task at all. Fortunately my peer partner Rebekah corrected me and gave me some tips on what to write about. She told me I should keep the quotes I used but instead of writing about the different information of virtual reality, I should write about the different audiences each author is talking to in their articles. This helped me develop my next two body paragraphs by writing about the different purposes and readability levels of each author. This feedback is going to help me in the future because now I know what to write about in a rhetorical analysis paper. Lastly, Rebekah also noticed that my thesis wasn’t referring to the authors writing skills rather than virtual reality. I then wrote all of my body paragraphs and fixed my thesis right after based on that.