Writing for the Web: COM/ENG 228

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My Reflection on this Class

To customized my class Tumblr blog, by altering its coding of HTML and CSS, was toilsome and complicated to figure out. Yet, after a few hours, once I figure out how to add in the features I wanted, it was quite simple. I had fun and I learned so much in this class. For instance, I learned how cool and important reading and writing can be on the world wide web. Afterall, medium really is the message. How one shows these messages, whether through visual images: as in memes and gifs, just writing content, a mixture of both, can spark an idea, change another person’s life, or alter someone’s perception. For words can creates words, and perfection is only in perception.  

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Journal # 15 -*~*- 07/31/17

There was a lot I learned in this class, including important skills that will help me later on in my life and/or future career. I learned effectively how specific writing styles can help reach an online audience. In this class, I learned how to examined, found, orchestrated deliberate writing techniques to grab the audience attention. Technical knowledge was showed through online distribution in article blogs and journal posts. One skill I particularly struggled with, because of lack of on my own practice, was HTML and CSS coding. Though I struggled with a tiny part of the assigned work, it only made me stronger in another skill, that I now have.

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Math Problem – Meghan Collins – Medium

Almost everyone seems to hate the subject of math, especially those who struggles with learning it. But why would they hate math so much…

Link to my medium article:

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Meghan Collins on Twitter

“Finish HTML/CSS on Codecademy for class.”

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The Gluten Nuisance

The Top 16 Effects/Symptoms of Gluten:

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Journal # 14 -**~**- 07/26/17

Today, I picked the article ‘How a Password Changed my life’ to read first. This is a beautiful story how someone changed a bad situation into a positive, healthy, and creative way to deal with it. It is inspiring how he turned his life around with a simple yet ingenious idea. Then, I read the ‘formula for Entrepreneurial Success.’ It lists five main steps that seem simple to follow yet are probably a lot harder than the article makes it appear. These ideas that the author mention in the article are not only keys to determining entrepreneurial success, but are also good points for anyone to try to live by in their everyday life.

Next, I read ‘why can’t we read anymore?: or can books save us from what digital does to our brains?’. It was a fascinating read; I especially love the part about the daughter, when she grabbed his face to get his attention. I thought it was a curious point about pleasing ourselves to death with all the over indulgences we do. This point that the article raises makes me want to read paperback books more often. I think everyone needs to make better changes to our daily lives. It may help people in today’s world be healthy in life if they listen to this theory.

https://medium.com/@uxmomo/how-a-password-changed-my-life-7af5d5f28038 

https://medium.com/@ev/formula-for-entrepreneurial-success-ea0b02c504cd

https://medium.com/@hughmcguire/why-can-t-we-read-anymore-503c38c131fe

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Journal # 13 --**~**-- 07/26/17

I read the article, ‘Why Creating a Meaningful Morning Routine Will Make You More Successful’ This article was very much like the one i read the other day, ‘8 Things Every Person Should Do Before 8 am’. I like it and want to try it but I wish I would remember the article when I first wake up.

The next article I read was ‘30 second habit with a lifelong impact.’ In the article, the significant tendency with a lifelong impact is to write down key points right after every lecture, meeting, or momentous experience. It would probably help with remembering vital life events and it is a way to pass on noteworthy points in your life to the next generation.

Finally,  ‘7 Things you Need to Stop Doing To Be More Productive Backed by Science’ was the first article I read today. Productivity increases when work is decrease because people are not overworking themselves, thus having more energy to focus on the task at hand. I agree that it is important to learn about how our body works and we must figure out how to optimize our energy to provide a more joyful and prosperous lifestyle.

https://medium.com/learn-unlearn-relearn/7-things-you-need-to-stop-doing-to-be-more-productive-backed-by-science-a988c17383a6

https://medium.com/swlh/the-30-second-habit-with-a-lifelong-impact-2c3f948ead98

https://medium.com/the-mission/how-creating-a-meaningful-morning-routine-will-make-you-more-successful-1b7372655938

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Journal # 12 --**+**-- 07/25/17

The first article I read was a very creative and interesting read.  ‘8 Things Every Person Should Do Before 8am’ was also inspiring and motivating to me; It gave me some new ideas to think about and maybe try out. I loved the writing style of the piece; it was very a persuasive article. Next, I read ‘Welcome to Medium,’ which provided new information and some information that I previously read about. The Medium is a collaborative writing tool, which helps writers learn fresh knowledge. ‘The 37 Best Websites to Learn Something New’ is the third article I read today. After reading this article I realized something, with all of these app and websites that can simply teach anyone basically anything, that we are the only ones to blame for not having a skill in something in today's modern world. Some people claim to not have enough time, yet still have the time to watch all their televisions shows. Time is not to blame, it is the answer, to spend the free time we have more wisely. After all, we only are given so much of it to use, why waste it?

https://medium.com/the-mission/8-things-every-person-should-do-before-8-a-m-cc0233e15c8d

https://medium.com/@ev/welcome-to-medium-9e53ca408c48

https://entrepreneurs.maqtoob.com/the-37-best-websites-to-learn-something-new-895e2cb0cad4 

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Journal # 11 --**+*-- 07/24/17

Medium is a multimodal platform where individuals can partake in sharing their stories, inspiring other people, and devising new ideas and opinions for others to contemplate about. Whether someone is the one reading or the person writing the medium, it is an active experience to uphold. This sounds like a brilliant, creative, and exciting idea to me and for anyone who want to share something unique with the world. This could also be a way for writers to develop more with in their craft, for instance this can aid writers by assisting in improving some of their writing abilities.

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Journal # 10 --*+*-- 07/20/17

After finishing the HTML/CSS on Codecademy, I know there are many way to customize and edit in Tumblr. Anyone can adjust the layout, embed images, add boxes or rearrange how text is displayed through out the page. One could also change the background image or create tables for information with HTML/CSS. Although I learned a ton, there is a lot more that I feel there is to learn about this subject. I also need to practice coding without the codes in front of me but in easy access in case I get stuck. With more practice I feel that I would get the hang of coding more.

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Journal #9 --*+*-- 07/19/17

Learning and building my knowledge of HTML and CSS in Codecademy is fun and interesting, yet it is a very long and complex subject. While it is long and I am learning alot, I feel as if I am not getting enough practice with some of the most difficult areas because of the level of complexity. I learn better by a more hands-on experience than this program is actually providing. Codecademy, in my opinion, is not aiding my ability to process the tools or codes that is being taught. This is a subject that I would love to learn more in depth about.

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Journal #8 --*+*--07/18/17

‘How to Customize your Tumblr’ was today reading assignment and though I had tried to read ahead atime, it did not make the slightest sense to me. So I decided to come back to it after starting the only thing that would make it easier to comprehend, the Codecademy assignment. There was a lot of new codes to read about. There were still lots of confusing part to it, for instance, there were some terms I did not fully understand before looking it up. For example, Exif data I now know is Exchangeable Image File data. I looked up what a Favicon URL is and learned that it is the tiny icon next the page’s title and it is used to when bookmarking a page.

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Journal #7--*+*--07/17/17

The title of the today reading seems very familiar. When I was reading this section from Writer/Designer, the text also seems to be familiar, as if I had read this before. In another previous class, I must have read it, yet I just do not fully remember. Today’s reading talks about Analyzing Multimodal Projects and how it should be formated. Though there is no exact correct answer to formulate multimodal text, there are certain factors to pay attention to when writing and designing it. Audience, context, purpose, and genre are these factors the writer must concentrate on when making decisions in writing multimodal text. From the text, I have learned some creative ways how authors can use the choices of design to help support the rhetorical situation, thus helping effectively persuade their audience to their point of view. By using the key design elements, such as: emphasis, contrast, organization, alignment, and proximity, authors can fully comprehend and determined the best possible range of assortment.

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Journal #6 --*+*--7/13/17

The six different popular memes I looked at today were “Haters Gonna Hate,” “Nyan Cat / Pop Tart Cat,”  “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore,” “Your Argument is Invalid,” “I Have No Idea What I’m Doing, ” and “Shut up and take my money!” These catchphrases I have heard of them before but never knew the roots of most of them before now. It was quite interesting to me reading how they came about. I noticed that after the memes spread, over time there was changes or new variations of the the original concept. Some concepts, like the “Nyan Cat / Pop Tart Cat,” evolved more so than others over time. “Nyan Cat” was first a song then it became a game as well as a flash video. Next, “Nyan Cat” was created as a modification for Windows default progress bars for brief time. That was all before somehow a copyright issues was created, but curiously not by the creator.

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Journal #5--**--7/12/17

Today I look at at least six different genres of .gif on Giphy. Some were cute and adorable, most of them were weird and/or gross, but a few of them make me laugh. I few of what I picked to look at was T.V: Sherlock, Science: bubbles, Movies: Harry Potter, Gaming: Sims, Stickers: love and happy, and Interest: Internet. The few that I liked I even shared on my different social media accounts. I noticed that not all of the GIFs had text written on it, but some of them did not need it to make it a likeable one. From what I have seen today, I think GIFs are a great way to show the user’s emotion on internet. GIFs, with or with text written on it, can show much more of the emotion than just text can do.

Example: Happy Cat Sticker

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Journal #4--*--7/11/17

For today reading assignment, I first chose ‘The 19 Best Plays And Musicals of the Year’ by Louis Peitzman. It was not very interesting to read, maybe like 4/19 titles got my interest. Then I read, ‘31 Time Politicians Didn’t Understand The Internet in 2016’ by Alice Workman. It was very humorous but most of them I didn’t really understand. Next, I read ‘100 of Cher’s Best Tweets from 2016’ by Ahmed Ali Akba and Michelle Regna, which was very funny and quite entertaining, but long.

‘28 of The Most Ridiculously Cute Kittens of 2016’ by Kat Angus and ‘The 30 most Important cats of 2016’ by Jack Shepherd, is two of my favorites because I love adorable kittens and they make everyone happy with their cuteness. My favorite one was the video of the black cat Salem in Glitter Bath Bomb. The Last and final Listicles I read was another favorite ‘23 Things we learned about The “Harry Potter” Universe in 2016’ by Ellie Bate. Though I already knew most of the information of here, it was still very fun to read. I like how each article I read had pictures, the tweets, memes, and or a videos incorporated into it.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/most-important-cats-of-2016?utm_term=.avPojDvq6#.ajamJwaRO

https://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzman/best-theater-2016?utm_term=.rhl7mQBq3#.wykXKM3EO

https://www.buzzfeed.com/aliceworkman/log-off?utm_term=.fh9VrvK30#.sqE07kVny 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/ahmedaliakbar/best-cher-tweets-of-2016?utm_term=.cfaY0Ka9x#.gbEdvZNEY 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/katangus/absolutely-purrfect?utm_term=.ee16R1K8y#.epq86MYgq

https://www.buzzfeed.com/eleanorbate/fantastic-beasts-and-cursed-children?utm_term=.hryq3lPxM

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Journal #3----7/10/17

Before reading ‘Memes in Digital Culture’ by Limor Shifman and today’s lecture, I only had the basic understanding of what the term, meme, truly means. The idea that memes are complex ideas that could be loaded on various locations is something I knew. However, the idea that memes could be considered any information that could be imitated, which is much more than a digital technological term, was surprising to me. When I think of it, the idea sort of makes a lot of sense; memes are like a newspaper’s comic panel. I also learned from the reading assignment that viral videos were not the same as internet memes, as I originally thought. They are only a part of what a meme is.