ENC 2135
Mariam Mckee | 141
BLOG #11
This chapter in BBG highlighted how to create a multigenre project. The points were important because it will help with project 3. A common struggle within writing is organization, and when writing with multiple genres, its important to think of how to be cohesive - firstly, introduce your genre. From there, make sure the sequence of writing flows by thinking of the purpose. The most powerful messages should be held for the end so it stays with the reader; also, a title is essential in order to grab the reader. Lastly, it is important to discuss the research and explain your choices while evaluating your project overall. All of this will help with the next project.
BLOG #10
The part of this reading that caught my attention was the part on advertising through large social media hubs, specifically youtube. I have been on youtube more lately to watch specific youtubers that I like review certain beauty products. While reading this, I thought about two things -- how youtubers get sent products to specifically review them so people will buy it, and how I don't buy a product before seeing the youtube reviews. How companies have started "advertising" has gotten so smart you can say that even I have fallen into the plan.
BLOG #9
This chapter discussed reworking your essay to create a final draft. Often times, having fresh pair of eyes look at it can bring a new perspective, catch mistakes that your language will not, or bring new ideas. Sometimes in drafts we struggle on how to make a point we know we wanted, so a peer review can help with that. As writers, we also often have "writers block" so making sure you are having someone look through your work, or yourself reading through it again can get you some where on a direction to take on your paper.
BLOG #8 - MMH chp 21 and 22
These chapters in the handbook taught me how to write in text citations, which comes in handy for both the research paper and in the future. Being in journalism back in high school with the same teacher who I had for English I, she basically shoved different citation techniques down our throats. Although I am a huge advocate of copy and paste, it is not always an option. You have to know when and where to not be able to use your own work. Essentially, if anyone other than you is seeing your work, citations or proper attributions need to be put in place. The handbook did a good job at showing the different ways of doing, especially for MLA, and there are also other quick sources online.
Something mentioned in chapter 21 to keep a working bibliography to keep it up to date. Something I personally like to do is to keep the links open for everything I find, and as I use them to move that link into my bibliography. At the end of me research paper I put them in MLA format. I don't know if anyone else agrees, but I have always hated the part where I create the MLA citation... but we have to so whatever. I've learned to appreciate why we do it, and usually scholar sources end up providing the link (yay!). So, they are both better sources AND provide a citation.
MINI GENRE PRESENTATION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V106RGMPcHQ
http://breakingbad.wikia.com/wiki/Color
For my mini genre, I highlighted the symbolism placed behind breaking bad through songs and colors. Throughout the show, there were subtle signs of foreshadowing communicated through those symbols as well as expression of feelings through the colors for a series of episodes.
S - breaking bad symbolism
O - foreshadowing/emotional representation
A - viewers of the show
P - colors influence emotion/thinking; the producers place the subtle signs to influence the audience.
TONE - dramatic, welcoming
MY LOG - APRIL 10
BLOG #7 - MMG Chp 7
While writing research papers, the part I always used to tread (and still do) was finding my sources, but then actually "researching" was worse. I never felt like I was using my sources the best way I could, but rather was just getting required sources out of the way. This chapter provided some ways to integrate sources, which is good because that is essentially the purpose of a research paper.
I have learned to get comfortable with some of my writing approaches and how I may integrate sources. I was very confused on how I would be able to find the required amount of sources, use them, and still come out with a paper that is not just vomiting information with a parenthetical citation at the end. Research paper are almost validating your own opinion in a way.
I learned how expansive the field of your sources can get, and with that you can get so much detail in with your research whilst staying to true to your writing. I also now understand the importance of databases and how they work, because they can provide some bomb ass articles that google does not have.
BLOG #5 - BBG Chapter 5
While reading this chapter, it made me realize that through most of high school, it was not that I didn't like writing, but that I hated what I was writing about. This semester, I have been able to choose what I am writing about for nearly every essay thus far and have seriously enjoyed researching and writing.
There were 2 main points that I thought were very important in the selection process because that is probably the most difficult part of the writing assignment. (1) Choosing a topic that is you, and is it something you can stick with. (2) Something that is not out of reach and you will be able to find resources about.
I feel like students often have a hard time finding something they'll be able to write the taunting "2500 word essay" about that doesn't make them want to jump off a cliff and clear off their entire Sunday morning/afternoon/evening. I liked how the chapter pointed out something that is YOU. It reminded me of when we were choosing our topics for the personal narrative in this class. After I changed my topic and wrote that first draft, I had never written 1000 words faster in my life. Words just flew on the page because it was something I didn't feel like was a burden when writing.
BLOG #6 - MMH Chapter 16
Finding sources is some peoples's worst nightmare because they don't know where to begin. Not until my first semester could we just use links we found on google. The only exception was wikipedia. In college, they stress that you may only be allowed to use "peer reviewed articles" or "scholar articles". I thought it was the most absurd thing mainly because it required more work to find something on a database.
I have learned to both love and hate databases. They are give you nothing or give you everything you could have imagined. In the MMH handbook, chp 16 talks about how the databases require narrowed down words, and this is so the best sources can be provided. However, this is difficult sometimes because if we havent done any research, we likely may not have narrowed anything down yet. That is something I am having a hard time with for our project 2. However, sometimes it only takes a few key words and the beginnings of research to narrow down the important aspects of your topic.
BLOG #3 - Plagiarism
As many people say, this is not much of issue until college. In high school you can usually get away with it. Then in college you get punished and you're just super shook. What does high school even prepare you for really??
Considering how we are so technology driven in this society, its becoming more of a problem because it's so easy to just *ctrl c* - *ctrl v*. People are struggling to make original writings, myself included at one point. I got no points on an introduction in a chem lab because my intro was too similar to the given information. My brother let someone look at his codes in programming and it somehow ended up on the internet. He nearly failed his class (until the teacher gave him a warning), but the other two girls involved had their admissions decision withdrew and the other lost most of her scholarship money to the university. Consequences are very serious when it comes tow taking other people's work.
Don't plagiarize people.
P.S. -- paraphrasing is still considered plagiarism.
BLOG #4 - Consider the Lobster
The author did a good job drawing in the listeners at the beginning, with this relatable language. As he gets into the reading, there is a lot of detail so that the listeners can almost visualize what is happening. In moments where the listener would not what is happening, there is a reading from the footer. In many personal narratives, it is easy to forget how our own language is not understood by the general person.
Something that caught my attention is how lobster went crap to gold within a few years. It shows how society changes, standards change, and how we change, within such a small amount of time. Our language changes, and we somehow have to keep up.
Thinking back to the first day when Mat asked "what is genre" -- genre now is much more broad and what someone wants to call a genre is much more broad.
BLOG #2 - Chp 2, Shitty First Drafts
First -- LOL. I genuinely enjoyed reading that.
Now, focusing on this part of the passage -- "Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something -- anything -- down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft -- you just get it down. The second draft is the up draft -- you fix it up. You try to say what you have to say more accurately. And the third draft is the dental draft, where you check every tooth, to see if it's loose or cramped or decayed, or even, God help us, healthy."
RETWEET. Could not be anymore true.
While reading this, it took me back to what chp 1 from blog post one was saying and how the writer knew what they wanted to write about, and appealed to the reader in a way to make them keep reading. It's honesty, it's fluent, and you can almost hear the voice in your head of the writer.
I personally have always, and still do, struggle with using the first draft as a place to brain fart and get everything out to organize later. Not by typing anyway, and I've learned to hand write thoughts because its more free and fluid. Last semester as I was turning in a set of narrative style notes in AMH I told my teacher "I can'y physically write you shit if you just want something in paragraph that summarizes the lecture. I did it in bullets my way." Shocked she goes "Okay... but honestly *high five* you found your voice and how to use it. there's people making millions out there by doing that. You do you."
I've seen some really horribly awful first drafts (including my own) sometimes that turn into beautiful work by the final draft. It's important to get a fresh eye and have others read your writing because your shit doesn't always make sense to other people. Combining different styles of writing to get your point across actually develops coherent sentences sometimes.
BLOG #1 - Chp 1, Understanding Genre
This first chapter reminded a lot of the things we had to consider in high school journalism. Initially having to choose whether we wanted to write "features", "sports", "opinions", or "news" they each had a different styles of writing outside of basic journalism techniques, appealed to different audiences, and each needed to portray certain kinds of information.
If this class is similar to that (which it is from what I am gathering), I am going to enjoy it.
One of my favorite aspects to writing is the rhetoric - or how you go about the rhetorical situation. And what's so beautiful about writing is that everyone does it differently. What drove me insane about certain people is that they take a topic but take out all the excitement from the topic because they write with no purpose and do not strategize how to appeal to readers. (Like, if you wouldn't read your own shit, others won't).
I personally loved playing around in my writing and analyzing the rhetorical appeals (personal fan of pathos bc who doesn't like emotions am I right?). The most important thing in writing after finding the purpose of your writing, is making your purpose identifiable to the readers by certain rhetorical techniques.