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[baw15b-blog]

Presentation Reflection

I honestly was so impressed with everyone’s presentation. I thought everyone did such a good job with their genres and just their community in general, so great job guys.

It’s really hard to pick a favorite but I’d probably have to go with the LGBT presentation. He got so many followers on his Twitter, I think it was almost 150, which is crazy impressive. He also got over 300 views on his flyer, which he considered to be his least successful. I could just tell that he put a lot of time and effort into his project. But again, great job to everybody!

[baw15b-blog]

11/17 Reading

The first reading about laying out pages had a lot of information I already knew, such as the information about the differences between landscape and portrait layouts. It was, however, interesting to learn how to make an article look more appealing to the eye or more professional. The article talked about the importance and role of a header and when to use graphics such as a chart or a graph.

The second reading on pictures and images in a document was slightly more interesting because of the fact that it contained so many visuals. This article also discussed the use of charts and graphs in a document and went further in depth. The rest of the article talked about how to use pictures or images in a document, which was my favorite part. I liked how they had the picture  of the man and woman and edited it four different ways in order to show how different edits can change the tone of the picture.

[baw15b-blog]

November 12 Reflection

Viral marketing is a type of marketing that takes place online, mainly on different social medias in order to raise brand awareness. Some examples are the advertisements shown before Youtube videos and the advertisements on Facebook news feeds, Instagram feeds, Twitter feeds, and even Tumblr dashboards. These are produced with the intention to target those users on these different social medias to sell their product. One way businesses can narrow their advertisements down to their target audience is by using cookies that document what websites you have been on, and therefore what products you are interested in. Facebook is the best example of this. On Youtube, users can sort through and pick specific advertisements they will allow their viewers to watch, and since there is a good chance the viewer and user have similar interests, the advertisement will most likely be relevant to them.

[lcm14c-blog]

Puppies - Persuasive

Puppies are arguably the cutest animals on the planet. They are so soft and cuddly, they love you unconditionally, and they constantly show affection unlike kittens. If you are a lonely person, or sometimes just feel like you want to be needed, getting a puppy is the best decision for you. With a puppy in the house, you’ll feel loved, safe, and also feel like a responsible adult. Adopting a puppy is also a great idea because you could be saving that pup’s life. In America, there are so many abandoned puppies that need a home. So many pups are dying each year from abandonment, malnourishment, or abuse. Adopting a puppy could be a saving grace, not only for you, but also for that pup. When adopting a puppy, it would be wise to consider how that puppy will act when it grows up. For example, do you live alone and need protection? Consider a pitbull mix or a boxer, they are known for being protective and territorial animals. Do you want a small dog that you can take everywhere with you? Consider a French bulldog or a corgi, they’re cute and also portable. 

Puppies are so darn cute and loveable that it’s almost rude to turn down a pup in need. When I finally moved into a house after living in the dorms, I knew that it was time to get a pup. I signed up as a foster parent and immediately got a call from the Humane Society about a dog that desperately needed a home. I picked up that dog and after 3 weeks of taking care of her I realized I could never give her up. After adopting her, I feel safer and more comfortable in my home. Not to mention, the unconditional love you receive from a dog is enough to convince you to adopt one. If you feel like you cannot commit to adopting a puppy, another great way to help would be to volunteer at the Humane Society. They are always in need of volunteers, and being able to play with dogs all day will do wonders for your mental health. 

Dogs have an average lifespan of 13 years. This means that your little puppy will eventually become an integral part of your family and will stick around for a long time. Another reason to consider adopting a puppy is that it helps families, and especially young children, cope with death. This might sound morbid, but exposing children to the unfortunate reality of life and death at a young age through the death of a pet can help them better understand and deal with the death of a family member or friend later in life. Another slightly strange advantage to adopting a puppy is that they can be helpful to young couples in deciding whether they want to, or can deal with, having children. Adopting a puppy has so many advantages that it’s almost impossible to come up with a disadvantage. Imagine coming home to a cute little pup sitting on your couch staring up at you lovingly, that’s enough to make me want to adopt a whole litter.

[baw15b-blog]

This is a persuasive genre because Leigh is trying to convince her audience to adopt a puppy. I can tell this by primarily her last paragraph that mentions several advantages to having a dog. She uses pathos in describing her personal experience with fostering a dog and then feeling led to adopt it. She also uses logos when she describes reasons why having a dog is a good idea. I would characterize this writing style as informal because her tone was on the casual side and there was no need to include other sources to back her up. I can see where she researched this topic maybe by looking up the average life span of  a dog. She used mainly prior knowledge as her research. One design element she used was paragraphs, which organized her thoughts well and separate subtopics. She also used correct grammar and punctuation, making her seem intellectual and making the piece easy to follow. She used a classic font that provided a professional element to her writing.

[enc26ers]

Writing into the day 11/10

Choose one topic:

A Product, Politics, Puppies 

Choose one genre:

informative, persuasive, narrative

Develop a composition, which you will both peer review and revise in class.

500+ words

[baw15b-blog]

Ever since Tommy was a little boy, he had always wanted a puppy. He wasn’t picky, just about any breed would do. He would constantly beg his mom and dad for a dog. On his ninth Christmas, after all his presents had been opened, Tommy’s parents pulled out one more gift from the dining room. Tommy anxiously waited to see what this special extra present would be. His parents rounded the corner with a wrapped box, which they handed to Tommy. His hands shook with excitement as he opened the box and saw a chocolate Labrador Retriever puppy looking back at him. Tommy couldn’t believe it, tears started to form in his eyes. “His name is Samson”, his father told him. Tommy smiled and picked Samson up out of the box. “I love him”, he said.

(not finished)

[baw15b-blog]

Chapter 9 Reflection

When I first read the title of this chapter, “Revising and Remixing Your Work”, I immediately saw how this chapter would apply to what we are doing in class right now. The chapter talks about the best ways to switch up your existing work to fit with whatever you need (and how to change genres). Changing genres is exactly what we are doing with our work from Project 2 so there is an obvious connection there.

The beginning of the chapter talks about revising, which is something we have already learned a lot about. Because of this, I found this section to be a little on the repetitive side, but it is still informative, none the less.

The section about remixing your work was pretty short. All it was, really, was an example of changing a film review to a PowerPoint.

[baw15b-blog]

Reflection for Nov 5

What first caught my attention about “Understanding Media Industries” was the analogy with the gnomes from an episode of South Park. It struck me as a strange choice of reference for a seemingly professional article. What I think this did was made the article relatable and draws the reader in. The author’s writing style throughout the text continues to have a relaxed and casual feel while still being professionally organized. The author makes the material easy to understand. It is helpful that all the vocabulary words are bolded as well.

The second artilce, “Understanding Media Studios”, starts off with a more professional feel, but also contains references to make the material easier to understand. The text is broken up into four sections: production, distribution, exhibition and retail, and promotion and protection of the industry. I personally found the production section to be the most interesting since it talked about how films are actually made. I also think it is cool that we get to read about film in this class because that is not something I expected in a class on genres and research.

[baw15b-blog]

Conference Reflection

At my conference, Ms. Bradley pointed out several areas of my paper that I could adjust, remove, or add. She suggested that I switch my first ans second paragraphs, which would improve my paper by presenting the prevalent issue first and the community second. I think this will help the audience to most clearly identify the issue, as the issue is the main point of the paper. I asked her how I could include genres in the paper and Ms. Bradley gave me a good suggestion of how to do that, which will be helpful in adding another paragraph to my paper, allowing me to reach the final word count. Along with these pieces of advice, she pointed out simple grammatical changes I could make on certain sentences.

Overall, it was helpful to meet with Ms. Bradley and hear what she thought of my paper. She had mostly positive things to say which was encouraging, and areas she critiqued I will go back and edit in order to produce the best paper I can. It was also helpful reading my work out loud to see how well it flows.

[baw15b-blog]

Chapter 7 Reflection

Chapter 7, Integrating and Documenting Sources, covers topics such as how to use a parenthetical citation, how to paraphrase, when to quote, and how to document sources in MLA format. I like how the authors Amy Braziller and Elizabeth Kleinfeld include screenshots of websites and even popular icons such as Stephen Colbert. It helps make the chapter more relatable and entertaining. For me, the most helpful part of the chapter was the section about documenting sources and the guide to MLA formatting. This was most beneficial because it helped me in forming and annotating my Research in Progress Summary for assignment two. The chapter provides examples of how to make in-text citations and a works cited page.

[baw15b-blog]

Chapter 14 Reflection

When I opened to Chapter 14, what first caught my eye was the title, Heros & Villains. It made the chapter sound interesting and drew me in out of curiousity. The chapter started off with an introduction on our ideas of heroes and villians. The first section, archetypal villains, started with a definition and provided lists of the top 50 villains of all time according to one website. Next, there was a researched argument by Stuart Fischoff discussing villains in film followed by an essay by Lee Masterson on "creating villains people love to hate". The next section, Heroes: Famous & Obscure, starts with examples of famous real life heroes, Martin Luther King, Bilawal Arbab, and Rick Friedman. The  chapter goes on to include posters of heroism in advertisements. Next is an editorial by Joshua Freeman on "working class heroes", which discusses the less appreciated heroes in today's culture.

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Chapter 5 Reflection

Coming into this chapter, the title "Choosing a Topic Through Basic Research" was a little intimidating. Fortunately, the authors broke it down into steps: Brainstorm, explore topic ideas, commit to a single topic, and form a working research question. This filled me with relief because at first, I didn't have a good understanding of what a research proposal was. Breaking it down into four logical steps helped me understand how I am expected to start a successful research proposal.

After deciding on a topic and question comes the main part: writing the actual proposal. The chapter goes on to explain how to research your topic and what are good or bad sources. Once research is found, we need to organize our sources and keep a works cited page, which the chapter also explains how to do.

Overall, this chapter was very beneficial to me and helped me understand how to start a research proposal. This will be great knowledge to have when we start Paper 2.

[baw15b-blog]

Krispy Kreme vs Dunkin Donuts

The debate over which donut company, Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts, produces the best tasting donuts is one that I will never understand. There is no competition there, Krispy Kreme blows Dunkin Donuts out of the water.

When one drives past a Krispy Kreme, they will see the famous "Hot Donuts" neon lights when the donuts are fresh off the assembly line. When one goes into the establishment, they can see exactly where and how their donut was made. Dunkin Donuts offers no experience like this. For a customer, there is no way to tell if the donuts they are purchasing are fresh or not and there is no way to see how their food was produced.  

Now looking at taste specifically, Krispy Kreme again puts Dunkin Donuts to shame. Their donuts are smaller, making them easier to eat, and most importantly, are glazed all over. They are always fresh and warm with the perfect amount of glaze. At Dunkin Donuts, however, the donuts are usually not warm, they have a stale taste to them, and they are only glazed on the top.

When it comes to Krispy Kreme versus Dunkin Donuts, the choice is really quite obvious.

[baw15b-blog]

Chapter 4 Reflection

Chapter 4 covers persuasive genres. For these compositions, the purpose is most often to convince the audience to side with the author. This is done in different ways, such as establishing ethos, using logos, and using pathos.

Establishing ethos is a very important element to effectively convincing the audience to agree with the author. Companies do this in real life by using fonts such as Times New Roman and Ariel to convey to their audience that they are a credible source (usually companies that provide news sources). Ethos is also established by the author's use of quotes that back up what he or she is arguing or trying to persuade the audience of.

Logos is the reasoning behind what the author is trying to say. Examples of this are recipes, pamphlets, and instruction manuals. It is important to establish logos because logos is the logic behind the persuasion or argument.

Lastly, pathos is crucial to persuasive genres since it stirs up the emotions of the audience. Advertisements use pathos a lot in order to relate to the audience and evoke a reaction from them that they will relate to the product at hand. For example, those car commercials with the dad and daughter where the daughter grows up before his eyes in this car and she drives off in it to college. Most of the audience can relate and will feel some emotions from this that they will then associate with the car being sold.

The chapter goes on to talk about the use of modes, media, style, and sources and how they are used in persuasive genres. It also goes on to analyze several advertisements and point out areas of persuasion within them.

[zerrinkurdak-blog]

Paper 1 Readings

Writing, in the simplest form, is art. Writing is expressing ideas and opinions in a way that makes sense. It bonds people together, and it challenges the norm. The writing process can be slow, but with patience one can produce something extraordinary. For me, it helps if I sometimes step back from my “shitty first drafts” to come back to them later, feeling refreshed. Remembering to keep perspective is crucial. As the article said, no writer starts out with an award-winning piece. You have to revise and give yourself time to figure out how to make the pieces click. In the class, I believe we write to improve and better ourselves. We also write to express our beliefs and our differences. Writing opens up a whole new world, and we get to share our worlds with each other this way. We’re going to work at becoming great writers in order to also become great communicators. This class is nothing like what I’m used to, but that’s what I like most about it. The class will help students learn how to give criticism and praise efficiently, and it will teach us how to produce the best versions of our papers. I think writing will be easier to most students in this class because most of it will be based on what each student wants to share, not on what is required to be shared. This class will guide students in finding their voice and sense of style, and I’m excited to see the growth that will undoubtedly come.

[baw15b-blog]

I like what you said about writing being easier because we'll be able to write about what we want to. I also hope to see improved writing abilities in us after this class.

[cathrynyanosik-blog]

Chapter One Readings

I have always had my own idea of what writing is: whether you were writing notes for class or if you were hand writing a paper. Now in this time period, we are adapting to the new technology, we now can type our papers with the computer checking for some of our errors. Computers are slowly transitioning us, as writers, we are beginning to no longer hand write anything, even book publishers are typing up their drafts. There is often always a method or a writing process for the writer, they have to make a plan of attack for their writing. This includes figuring out your own personalized style, picking a genre, picking who your audience is. All these things affect the quality of our writing and having a writing process makes everything more efficient. For our upcoming paper that is due, having a writing process will make the paper not only better but it will help with the flow of the paper and the writer. We write because we want to work on our writing and improve upon it because we have a desire to grow as a writer. Whether unfortunate or fortunate this class is nothing like my high school English, the only thing in common is we wrote a lot of large papers but never with a writing purpose in mind. I am looking forward to writing a paper with a new sense of purpose!

[baw15b-blog]

I like your point about how what we think about as writing has begun to shift with increased use of technology. That's something I hadn't really thought of before.

[baw15b-blog]

9/1 Response

Writing is a way of expression used to explain something, persuade others towards or against a thing or idea, or to tell a story, fiction or nonfiction. People write for different purposes; some journal as a way to record memories or as an outlet, some write responses towards certain ideas or events in order to persuade others to agree with their views, some write as a creative outlet, and the list goes on.

The writing process is a five step way of organizing thoughts and editing one's work in order to produce the best writing possible. The steps include prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Prewriting is the time to think about what you want to say in your paper, essay, etc. Drafting is when the writing begins which is followed by revising which is the time to improve your work. Editing is when you go back and correct bad grammar or weak sentences and finally, publishing is sharing your writing.

We write here to share our thoughts on certain topics or writings and to better understand the work or topic ourselves. I can't say exactly what writing will be like in this class yet, but I'm sure it will be professional, well thought out, and organized.

[across2135-blog]

Thoughts on Chapter 1

Before I even began to read Chapter 1, I thought to myself, “I’m sure I already know what this chapter is going to be about. We have been talking about genres since elementary school.” And when I got to the second paragraph I saw one of my very own questions right in front of me, “Why bother thinking about genres?” I thought this was a very valid question until I continued on to find that many layers make up the simple word Genre. Genres are ever-changing compositions because of the versatile way that they are used. When I was a little girl I spent time writing in my own journal, and now I am constructing my own blog. It is fascinating to be able to see the way society is able to communicate by more than just pencil and paper. This chapter has helped me gain a better perspective on how to approach future compositions. It is key to address your target audience and to give your words a purpose. It is very evident that Kristen LaCroix knew what her goal was from the beginning. She presented a project with clarity, and makes all the “Type A” planners out there proud. I learned from her project that preparation and creativity are going to be vital in creating my very own papers and projects. Maybe English textbooks are helpful after all.