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Transformations

Older https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B34wlfoOump4RzZNek4yVWFHWWc/view?usp=sharing Younger https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B34wlfoOump4Q0dIMkFxalhRZFU/view?usp=sharing For WP3 I transformed the scholarly article Do we really know what makes us happy? A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being by Paul Dolan into a BuzzFeed article for and older genre, and a high school graduation speech from a principal or a dean for the younger audience. This article goes into depth to analyze data and reports from studies on happiness linked to economics and psychology to determine what aspects of life provide the highest level of happiness. To make these transformations, I had to make certain choices, particularly choice of moment and choice of word to fit conventions (McCloud). Article Summary: In the academic article Do we really know what makes us happy? A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being, Paul Dolan sets out to find out what aspects of life make people the most happy. Dolan found that money is only responsible for happiness to a certain extent, mainly stopping after ones needs are met. It was also found that a mid level of education is responsible for happiness as well. Health, both physical and mental, is also important for one to be happy throughout their life. It was also found that those who are social, whether it be in the community, with friends and family, or in an intimate relationship, tend to be happier than those who abstain from social activity. The most important part of this article that is not directly stated but strongly implied is that a balance of happiness factors is key so that one doesn’t over nourish one area and let the others perish. For the older audience I transformed my scholarly article into a BuzzFeed article titled “Happiness: What Causes It? How Can We Get It (You Might Be Surprised).” The intended audience for my transformation are early to mid twenty year olds who are still in to news sources that have a pop culture-y feel to them. BuzzFeed articles are characterized by short, catchy article titles that try to entice the reader to read them, smaller titles for each part of the article indicating the subject of a certain part of the article, simple conversational styled dialogue, and lots of visuals. To transform the title of my scholarly piece, I had to reword it to make it shorter and sound catchier so that someone skimming a website for interesting articles could read it quickly and hopefully be intrigued enough to click the hyperlink. Do we really know what makes us happy? A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being was not going to cut it because it is rather long and seems like it would be quite a boring read. Instead, I rewrote the title by taking the general idea of the article and rewriting it to read “Happiness: What Causes It? How Can We Get It?” and below in parenthesis “You Might Be Surprised”. I chose to add the part in parenthesis because it uses mystery to make the potential reader question what they thought they knew about happiness, and make them more likely to read the article to see if they really are surprised by the information in it. Also, I chose to include titles to each subcategory in my article so the reader knows what they are reading about as the article is separated into parts including “Money,” “Education,” “Health,” etc. Both of these title moves are made by myself and those who actually write for BuzzFeed because young adults browsing the Internet generally want to read something that is interesting and easy to read. My BuzzFeed article also used simpler language than the scholarly article and had a conversational tone because a BuzzFeed article is supposed to be easy, light reading. The reader is not supposed to be bombarded with sophisticated language and terms that they might not know the meaning of. In this effect, I omitted phrases such as reverse causation and acronyms like SWB that would only make sense if the reader read the article itself. In addition, I referenced my article but didn’t cite it within the article so the reader wouldn’t get tripped up every time it was referenced. I also took a conversational tone when transforming my article. I used the words we and you that aren’t used in the article, as well as phrases like hit the books. These moves make my article take on a more casual tone and bring it away from the scholarly article genre, and help turn it into a pop culture news source/information article genre. Lastly, my BuzzFeed article featured a large amount of visuals. Visuals are used to make my article more attractive. There is a visual next to the title hyper link, visuals before every sub category, and of course visuals in the margins that consist of advertisements and links to other articles. An actual BuzzFeed article take on this form so I decided to be artistic and make a recreation so my article takes on that pop culture website feel. For my transformation aimed at a younger audience, I transformed my article into a graduation speech that would be given to the class of 2016 by a dean or a principal on the subject of happiness. Graduation speeches tend to be formal, addressing the graduating class and giving them advice for the next step in their lives as they are generally given during a farewell ceremony or the actual graduation. My graduation speech on happiness uses formal language because it is intended to be given in front of the entire graduating class, the parents, grandparents, and other relatives of the graduates. Because of the seriousness of the setting and the high image of the principal or dean giving the speech, the casual tone is abandoned for a more sincere one. To fit this convention, I didn’t use slang or contractions, and made sure there are no cacophonic sentences if it were to be read out loud. Also, my graduation speech addressed the class of 2016 directly since the principal or dean wants to give them the advice. I used words such as you and we so the speech seems as if it is spoken directly at the class so that it doesn’t seem like the speech giver is reading some script that uses third person. Also, I used the phrase my friends a couple times to help signify that the class has now graduated and is no longer under the faculty, but peers among them who have joined them through advancement in life. It helps signify that the class is moving on, and that their high school memories are to be cherished and celebrated, as most high schools would wish this of their students. Ultimately I took the information in my scholarly article and transformed it into two different genres based on the conventions of each genre in question. I made specific moves to make this happen. Since BuzzFeed is a pop culture information source, I had to make my boring scholarly article sound more interesting using catchy titles, simple language, and imagery so it would stand out. Because of these conventions, I had to use summarizations when writing about my article. For the graduation speech, I had to take the information in my article and turn it in to sort of a lesson that contains formal language and unifying language. I also had to make the information applicable to 17 and 18 year olds because they are the ones who would be using it in the future. In conclusion, I had to “leap into identities,” (Losh, Alexander) to transform my article by putting on artist/writer’s shoes and fulfill conventions.

Thlog 8

     Something I learned this week that I really enjoyed was the writing like a photographer analogy.  This is a good analogy because it uses aspects of photography to explain what I should be doing in my writing.  For example, framing.  If the photographer wants to capture a certain picture, they are going to frame it so they only capture the thing they are trying to take a picture of without adding anything unimportant or extra.  Also, they don't cut out the focus by zooming in too small.  Another photography to writing analogy that I thought was cool/helpful is the concept of foreground and background.  The background is important because surrounds the focus of the picture, but it isn't what the picture is about.  The foreground is what the picture is focused on.  It is highlighted and usually closer to the viewers perspective.  If the background gains too much focus, the foreground gets lost among it.  This is an important concept to understand as a writer because we must include some background information so the focus doesn't stand alone, but zoom in so we focus on the intended topic and cut out anything extra. 
     Another useful tool that I can use to improve my writing is summarization.  Summarizing something is very simple, but I never thought about summarizing my own writing.  I think making summaries of my paragraphs or of my article as a whole can help me determine if all the information I provided is needed or not, and if my article or paragraph does what it is supposed to do, whether its persuading, speculating, or informing.
     Something else I learned that will be very helpful in my writing project 3 is the concept of putting on the artist's shoes.  When we put on the artist's shoes, we are looking at something from their perspective.  We are trying to see what they see, why they did something.  This translates to writing when I am trying to transform information into a new genre because I put on the writer's shoes, and see what they did.  Most importantly I analyze the rhetorical devices they used and try to see why they did it, and then apply it myself.  This is not only am important writing skill but also an important life skill.  Stepping into someone's shoes to see why they did something is useful in determining motives and seeing if something is justified. 

PB3A

           A topic that I thought that could be cool to transform from an academic paper to different genres is the topic of happiness.  Since I almost used happiness as the topic for my WP2 I’ve read plenty on it and know there is a lot that can be said and done with this topic.  For my PB3, I think I am going to use a study or piece that tries to answer “what makes us happy?”.  These articles often mention how it isn’t money or power that make us happy, but rather helping others and being in positive relationships, so I am most likely going to focus on those aspects.

            For the transformation aimed at a group of people older than me, I was thinking I could do a few things.  The first one that I thought would be an interesting transformation would be talking the information and turning it into something like a buzzfeed article.  It would be something like “You wouldn’t believe what makes you happy” or “What makes us happy (its not what you think).”  By doing something like this, I would take the information from the article, like how money or power doesn’t make you happy, list them on their own little slide, and offer commentary on how studies show that these don’t make you happy.  Then I would do the same for the things that do make people happy according to the study.  Something else I could do for the genre geared towards adults is maybe an article in a cosmopolitan magazine or something similar to that.  This article would debunk some of the false ideas of the things that make people happy and suggest ways to be a happier person.

            The genre geared towards younger people proved to be harder to think of ideas for.  Also, I think this transformation will be more difficult.  The first genre I thought I could transform my article to would be a children’s book.  I like this idea because I know it’s feasible, especially with my topic.  To do this, I could make a kids group of friends the different ideas of what makes people happy, and make him/her get along better with the ideas proven to make us happier.  I think this would be cool, but it is also generic, so I’m most likely going to go with something more creative.  Something else I could do is something similar to that poem The Old Man and the Little Boy we looked at in class.  It would be some sort of simple poetic biography with simple pictures around the outside.  This would be similar to something you might find in a child’s room on their wall in fancy writing in a frame.  It would be almost like a piece of life advice or guidance.

            The most difficult part of this project is figuring out what genres I am going to transform my information into, and how I am going to do it.  The tricky part of this is that I’m sure some people younger than me read buzzfeed articles, and I’m sure some adults would love to read a poem about happiness, but I’m using the intended audience so I hope that will be okay.

Thlog 7

This week in writing 2 I learned a lot of techniques that I can use to make my writing better.  The first technique I can include in my writing process is knowing what I am writing about.  This doesn't mean just knowing the little bits that I am going to include, but knowing the subject or topic thoroughly, knowing the ins and outs, and even knowing about the things that I don't think i am going to include in my writing.  I think this is a helpful tip because it is much easier to see the bigger picture when you are educated on what you are going to write.  Knowing the subject thoroughly also can help you make connections that you might have not made.

           Another process tip that can help me as a writer is drawing out a mind cluster map when thinking about what I am going to write or planning how I am going to present the information.  This is extremely helpful in my case because I struggle the most with how I am going to organize my information when I am getting ready to write a paper.  This can be a helpful tool to create an outline for my paper as well.  Also, when thinking about what I am going to write, I always come up with cool ideas but then forget them and they disappear forever.  Using the thought bubble map, I can write down my first order thoughts relating to each sub-topic so they are organized and not lost.

           A tip I learned to help check if my paper makes sense and flows is to “turn it into a poem” by separating it by sentences.  This can be helpful because it isolates the sentences individually so they stand out.  By separating them, it is easier to see them as individuals, and see if the previous one connects to the current one, and see if that flows into the next.  This technique also is helpful to see if I need to add a sentence, or delete one. 

           I also learned that sentences can be one or two short words, or be a lengthy with 70+ words, and that there are reasons that a writer would use super short or super long sentences.  For example, a long sentence can be used for in depth analysis and be packed with information.  A short sentence can follow this up and be effective because it is a change of pace and grabs the reader’s attention.  A short follow up sentence is a move that is both stylistic and useful that authors use to add a little variation that I personally am a fan of.

Trees and Journal

The moves I see in these videos all have to do with how the artists go about painting their trees.  For example Bob Ross does less detailed tree groupings and uses silhouettes to create trees in his paintings.  The disney animators however have different moves, like painting a tree through the lens of an architect or letting the paint blend ion the canvass to give life and movement to a still painting.

The artists describe what they are doing by referring to the techniques they use to make their trees.  I noticed it is a combination of little tweaks and additions that all add up to create a specific style for each of the artists.  They direct our attention to why they are doing something--why the paint is mixing on the page, why lighter fluid is being mixed with the paint, why they are starting with a basic black silhouette.

Each artist had their own style when creating trees.  Bob Ross used very basic designs that added together to create a detailed picture.  He used a series of brush strokes to create a forest of "happy little trees." The disney painters also had their own styles that resulted in very different outcomes of the same subject based on their interpretation.  One painter's tree came out to be abstract because he saw the tree as a structural being with less detail and more bold outlines and edges.  Another saw the tree as full of life and alive, so he gave it movement by mixing the paint on the page and using pallet knifes instead of brushes to give it a wispy willowing look.  Another went for three dimensions using shadows and outlines and the last used realism, focusing in on the details of the bark.

      My rough draft was really rough because I couldn't figure out how to say what I wanted to say, so basically I had trouble putting my thoughts onto the paper.  It was frustrating because when I wrote them down, my organized thoughts that sounded so good in my head no longer sounded so good.       Pretty happy with my final draft since I cleaned things up a bit and made things more clear.

The question of “what does this mean” helped because they reminded me I had to go back and define terms that I knew but the reader might not necessarily know.  Also, the question of “how does this relate to exigence” reminded me to relate my evidence back to my original claim.

Thlog 6

This week in Writing 2, I learned a lot through the weekly process and writing tips.  A tip that helped me a lot is the tip about looking at a picture of something before you write about it or if you are stuck.  I used this while writing my first draft to get started because looking at pictures of my topic brought ideas to my mind.  I thought this was a very helpful tip to use when I was looking for information, or felt like I had nothing to write about.  Something else I learned from the weekly writing tips is that there are sooooo many ways to say the word say that I can use to improve my writing.  Using words like convey or exemplify can make my writing sound less boring and repetitive, and also give it more meaning as the synonyms of say have slightly varying definitions.  I also used this technique in my WP2.  Something else that I learned that can be incorporated into my writing to better establish my credibility is the idea of using hedged language.  Hedged language is using words in a sentence to make it less absolute and leaving room for error and deviation from a claim.  It is hard to claim that all people or every one likes something because even if it is something very likeable, someone, somewhere might not like that thing, therefore making the person responsible for the claim inaccurate and less credible.  This was helpful in my writing project because there are most definitely exceptions to my claims and the claims of the articles I chose to cite in my writing.  Something else In class that I picked up is that I need to further develop style in my writing.  In my opinion, when a writer has style, it helps distinguish them as a writer.  They stand out.  Also, I find that reading a piece that has a distinct style makes it more interesting and fun to read, essentially making the piece more reader friendly which is an important piece of any article, essay, document, etc.  Also, I learned about parallelism.  Parallelism is a stylistic tool that writers use to match ideas and make connections.  Parallelism also helps make a piece of writing more reader friendly as our brains are wired to recognize and expect patterns, and feel somewhat satisfied when one is recognized or come across.

PB2B

           Writers make moves to help distinguish their style and put purpose into what they’re writing.  The moves writers make are specifically chosen to serve a purpose in the article or essay.

            A move writers often make is the “adding metacommentary.”  Dirk makes this move in Navigating Genres to follow up a quote.  By introducing the paragraph with “In other words, Bitzer is trying to…,” Dirk is taking the quote she added it and indication the following paragraph will explain it.  Not only does she go on to explain it, she is takes the quote and milks it for all it has to offer and then applies it to her argument to further her point.

            Another move authors make is the “introducing quotations” move.  This move is made because an author wants to add a quotation from another writer to strengthen their own argument and up their credibility.  The move, however, is not the quote itself, but rather the introduction to the quote.  By including “In the article called The Rhetorical Situation, Bitzer arues…,” Carroll is telling the readers who she is quoting so the reader knows it’s a credible source.  The introduction of the quote also makes the article more reader friendly and flow better as apposed to just slapping a quote on to the page with no precursor.

            The “indicating who cares” move is a move authors make to tailor their argument or article toward a certain group of people.  By including the phrase “In recent years, biologists have been calling fat…,” the writer Birkenstein and Graff are quoting—Denise Grady—is making their article one that would be of interest to researchers, athletes, or people trying to lose weight.  In this way, the Grady is making her article of interest towards a certain group of people and establishing a “who cares” about her article.

            Writers will often times make the move of “Introducing Standard Views” when beginning an article or paragraph.  Writers will use this move because they either want to back it up or disprove it.  For example, in How to Read Like a Writer, Bunn opens a paragraph stating that “For most college students, RLW is a new…difficult [way to read],” and then goes on to describe why it can be difficult and why it is new for most college students.  Bunn introduced a standard view and backed it up.

            Another move Bunn makes in How to Read Like a Writer is the “Agreeing—with a difference” move.  In this move, the author agrees with information or a quote, but also adds another bit of valid information or thought.  For example Bunn agrees with his student how RWL can be useful when reading a published novel, but also states that “…RWL can be used equally well with either published or student-produced writing.”  This move is useful for an author because they can take a claim, a quote, or information that is valid and add onto it to tailor it specifically to their purpose, strengthening their paper.  This move can also be used as a segue into another topic.

            A move not listed or named in They Say I Say is a move I like to call “us.”  The move “us” is characterized by the author using the pronouns of you and I.  This move can be seen in Dirk’s Navigating Genres where it is not evident in any particular quote, but rather across the entire article itself.  Dirk uses this move because she is writing to introductory writers in a lower-level college writing class.  By using this move, it seems as if Dirk is talking directly to the reader as if she was lecturing us.  This move also makes the article seem more casual and less heavy, making it less boring to read in my opinion.

            A move writers use to tie to paragraphs and keep an essay flowing is the move I like to call the “Billy Mays (but wait there’s more).”  This move is characterized by authors using transitional words like also or another to begin a paragraph that relates to what is being said above, but is separate enough that it deserves its own paragraph.  For example, in Steps Toward Rhetorical Analysis, Carroll made a connection between the rhetorical features of exigence and audience.  These two concepts are both rhetorical features, but are different rhetorical features.  Therefore, they are separated into paragraphs that are connected with a transition that reads “Another part of the rhetorical context is audience…”  This move also introduces the topic of the new paragraph. 

            Another move writers use that I am particularly a fan of is a move that I’ve named the “Too Long, Didn’t Read (TL;DR).  This move is especially prominent in Mike Bunn’s How to Read Like a Writer, and is characterized by a list of bullet points at the end of a series of paragraphs or the end of an article that serve as a summary of the information above.  The bullet points generally lack color and creativity, and are to the point.  They are especially useful when someone who read the article wants to look back and get the gist of what it was about, and are also helpful for the first time reader as a recap of what they just read.  A reader can get almost all the crucial information from the article by reading these summaries.

            A move writers make to make their audience think about what they’ve written or practice the concept is a move I’ve dubbed “And You?”  In this move, the author analyses the concept they’ve laid out, and then turns it over to the reader asking questions like “what do you think about______?” or “how would you characterize______?” This can be seen in Murder where Boyd asks what would we “include in our eulogy?”  This gets the reader thinking about what conventions they include (the concept being analyzed) in their eulogy to make it a eulogy.

            A move that is similar to the “And You?” move but different enough where it is a move of its own is a move the goes by the name of “Credibility Command.”  Writers use this move when they want you to do something that they can’t do themselves through writing to try and prove a point.  For example Dirk tells the reader to “ask [their] classmates” what they think a thesis is.  By asking us to do this, Dirk is getting us to see that our classmates’ definitions of a thesis statement might differ, but all contain certain conventions, proving her point that almost everything has a set of conventions that categorize them into genres.

Thlog 5

    A tool I learned this week that can be useful in enhancing my writing is the italic.  Normally I would use italics for only titles because I didn't quite know where to put them and thought they had little use, but it turns out they can be used to “bring a dash of color” to my writing.  Also, I learned that they have another practical use, being that they can be used when referring to specific words.

    This week we also took a closer look at how different disciplines of study can study the same subject in totally different ways.  For example, when studying music, a historian can study the history of music, the economist can study the music industry, and the psychologist can study what effects music has on the brain, all while the philosopher studies what is music.  Also, I noticed there was a lot of bleeding over, like how psychology might study what certain chemicals in the brain do while biology might study what certain chemicals in the brain are.  I thought this was a very interesting how you can take almost anything and have several ways of studying it.  

    Something else we examined in class is “imrad.”  “Imrad” is a logical structure that almost all academic papers follow. This form takes the reader through the introduction, introduces the method, displays the results, analyses those results, and then discusses them, leaving the study open ended.  Academic writers often make this move because it works.  I think I can apply this to my own writing by taking the idea that form follows function, and making sure my essays and articles have a form that is logical for what I am trying to convey.

Another concept I learned about this week is the concept of “making moves.”  A definition that I think describes moves well is ‘something someone does to do something.’  the move made is the something that someone does, and the something they do is the motive to why the person of interest did the thing.  Knowing this, I realized articles and papers are full of moves writers specifically make, and that I, too, make moves of my own in my writing.  Also, when studying moves, it was interesting to see how moves have their own set of smaller moves that make up the move.  For example, the michael Jordan flying layup thing had its own moves, like getting the ball and jumping, that build into one big move.  Without those smaller moves, the layup would not be the same.

   

PB2A

   

    Big wave surfing-an extreme sport-is attractive to those looking for a healthy dose of adrenaline.  But why would one choose to surf big waves and not find the rush somewhere else?  Why would one subject themselves to the pulverizing power of big waves, the rock hard reef at the bottom, and the dangerous creatures that lurk below?  A team of sport psychologists in the California State University set out to learn what was going on in the minds of big wave surfers at the notorious Northern California big wave surf spot of Mavericks.  The paper that resulted had conventions that made it one of an academic nature.

    The first high-order concern and convention of an academic paper is the abstract.  An abstract is a paragraph at the top of the paper that serves to let the reader know what the paper is about, what was done, and why it was done.  The abstract helps a reader, much like myself looking for a paper on which to write a paper, to know if this is the type of paper they are looking for and if so, provides background so the reader knows what they are reading.  The abstract serves as the purpose of this paper as it directly says “The purpose of this study...” directly in the abstract.  It doesn't get any more obvious than that.  Also, the abstract serves as a way for the target audience to know if this is the paper for them.  Without the abstract, a knowledge-seeker might have to read the entire paper, which can sometimes be lengthy, to determine if this is the type of paper they were or weren't looking for.  The abstract also lays out the structure of the paper, in this case separating it into the “psychology related to various stages of: big-wave surfing, including pre surf, in the lineup, catching the wave, riding the wave, wiping out, and postsurf.”  In this way, the abstract separates the parts of the study, distinguishing them as different from the steps of big wave surfing that come before and after the step in question.  

    Another higher order concern and convention of a research paper is the Thesis statement.  The thesis statement is the researcher or writer’s argument that the entire paper is molded around.  Since an academic paper is primarily composed of evidence and analysis backing up a claim, there must be a claim made to back up.  For example, a summary of the thesis statement of the academic paper being dissected is “big wave surfing is less about the risk, and more about developing positive life skills.”  The thesis statement not only poses an argument, but helps the writer stay on track with what they are trying to prove and is what the analysis will always end up leading back to.

    After the paper is introduced and an argument is formed, the paper is then broken up into sections that have their own subsections.  This higher order concern of breaking up the paper into paragraphs and putting them in a certain order is a choice the writer makes that he/she feels makes the most sense and helps the reader follow along with the study, and therefore a convention of this paper.  The first section is the “Method” of the experiment.  In this section the writer lays out the who and the how of the study, then followed by a quick analysis of these two aspects and an excerpt describing the study’s trustworthiness/validity.  This is important because it lays out who was involved in this study and how they were incorporated into it so the reader gains a better understanding of the group of people being studied and how they were being studied.  The next section of the paper is the “Results” section.  In this section, the researcher lays out their findings for each part of the surf.  In the results section, the researcher organizes their findings, separating them into the parts of surfing a big wave.  This is key because the thoughts and feelings of being in the lineup are completely different from the psychology of a surfer while on the wave, so if they weren't separated, the paper would lose some sense of purpose as it exists to describe the psychology at different stages.  Closely following The results is the “Discussion” section.  In this dense part of the paper, the researcher sums up the results, explains them, analyses them, and then directs the findings back to the thesis in support of it.  This is the part of the paper where the writer does the majority of their point proving.  The discussion section also serves as a type of conclusion as it wraps up the paper towards the end by restating the thesis with what was found through the study.  Lastly, there is a “Reference” section that is a list of the referred sources the writer used, helping to back the validity of the paper.

    This academic paper didn’t specifically pose a question, but rather made a statement that related to the findings of the paper.  Before the researcher conducted the experiment, however, the question they wanted to answer could have been a broad “what is the psychology in big wave surfing athletes?”  To answer this question and create a thesis, the paper relies on the data and quotes from the athletes so analysis can be made and turned into an argument.  Without the data and findings, there is nothing learned, nothing to base analysis on, and therefore no argument with any validity, therefore making the findings the most important part of the paper.

   

Thlog Week 4

Something extremely helpful that I learned this week on monday was the concept of the reverse outline.  The first time I have ever heard of such a thing was when it was first brought up in class.  I thought to myself “I don’t usually use outlines so why would I use a reverse outline?”  It turns out, when Zack made us use them on our own papers I found several connective issues with my paper and found that there were certain things I needed to add to make it flow better, and that I needed to separate some topics into their own paragraphs.  This also helped because it helped me adjust my paper so that I accomplished what I set out to do.  The most important thing that the reverse outline helped me with was my thesis.  My thesis wasn’t bad but I made some points and arguments in my paper that wouldn't have been relevant if I didn't adjust my thesis.  I like the reverse outline because it helped me mold my paper into something better than it ever could have been without viewing it at this angle.

    Another activity we did on monday was the highlighting activity.  This activity helped me see if my claims were backed by the text and then to see if I provided analysis on my citations.  This activity also saved me because I forgot to include aspects from the course reader which is a significant part of my paper grade.  I noticed that when I quoted Dirk and then re read my paper, it appeared stronger because I used Dirk-an established writer and thinker-to validate my claims and analysis.

    In today’s class (wednesday) we dissected the conventions of the three disciplines of the university- hard science, soft/social science, and the humanities-and assigned subjects into one of the three categories based on their own conventions.  It was interesting to see how people categorized different subjects and what their arguments for their choices were.  The ones that were obvious were the hard sciences like physics chem and bio under hard science and philosophy under humanities, but there were also some subjects that were harder to classify because they have characteristics of both.  For example, psychology was labeled as a hard science by some and a hard science by others because it was based on studies and labs and had some hard science components to it, but it also had a social science element to it because it is the study of human reaction and interaction and how we work and think.

    Another activity we did in class that I found particularly interesting was the murder activity.  Several different groups each got a genre that they had to use the given information to write what they were given.  For example there were police reports, letters, emails to parking patrons and so forth.  It was interesting because even though we all had the same base information, our purpose and sometimes our audience were different and it was easy for the most part to guess what each group was supposed to be mimicking.  After reading up on what WP2 is about, I can see how this activity was crucial and will go a long way into how I think about and write WP2.

Thlog3

This week I learned about a bunch of things but first I wanted to touch on the idea of rereading my work and looking for mistakes.  Usually when revisiting my work I just skim it but since I’ve been scrutinizing my work, especially in what I wrote in my rough draft, I found mistakes that if I had left them they would have made me look very, very uneducated and sad.  This also helped me because as I re-read what I wrote, I thought of more ideas that I could include and add to my argument or statement.  This has helped me in my writing because I no longer look dumb because I let a silly mistake slide.  Another thing I learned about this week was how useful of a tool dashes can be.  We learned about hyphens, and why we use them, but to me the dashes seem more important.  Dashes allow the writer to insert information when they don't want the info to be too separate by using parenthesis or confuse the reader with a plethora of commas.  Another bit of information I learned this week, quite possibly the most important, is the technique of building a good argument.  A good argument is persuasive.  It has evidence that supports its claim as to why it’s valid and why it is correct.  An example if a bad argument is one I encountered earlier this evening.  A friend of mine came up to me and was like “Hey Gary let’s go to this concert this sunday night.”  This friend of mine didn’t give any other reason as to why I should go besides the “you’ll have fun” aspect.  They failed to address the negatives of me going to the concert, like not doing my homework and not getting sleep, therefore making the argument weaker..  Although this was a bad argument because said friend didn’t address all the aspects of me going to the concert, for some reason I went and am now writing this at 1am on a sunday night.  As you can tell I’m stoked.  Another thing I learned this week that applies directly to me was the rejection of the “one shot shebang” angle when writing an important paper.  I’ll admit it, I sat down and wrote my first draft in one sitting.  Did the process suck? Yes. I recommend not doing the one shot shebag because it makes writing so much harder than it needs to be.  I sat down, straining, trying to think of what I wanted to say which only stressed me out.  The one shot shebang was a technique I used mainly because I didn’t have time because I procrastinated and had to do it then and now.  I probably won’t do this again.  Lastly, I wanted to discuss the working vs final thesis statement.  This concept has been a part of my writing for a while now, but I never identified it as a step in the creation of my final piece because when I altered my thesis statement, I kinda felt like I was cheating and tailoring my statement to fit what I wrote and thought about.  I now realize this is helpful because it helps my paper actually make sense which is kinda cool.

Thlog Week 2

            This week I learned a lot about rhetorical analysis and other vocab that has affiliation with rhetoric.  Previously I thought rhetorical analysis only occurred when one was reading a piece of rhetoric.  This of course made little sense to me because when I thought more about it I didn’t really know what rhetoric was.  I couldn’t define it or give an example.  When searching the internet, the simple definition of “a piece of literature using persuasive language or images” was helpful in learning what rhetoric is in literature, but the main thing I took away from class this week is the idea that rhetoric is everywhere.  Billboards, the school senate political ad outside my window right now, the layout of a building, the pattern in which the trees are planted, they all have a meaning in why they are what they are.  We are constantly analyzing these characteristics throughout the day whether we realize it or not.  For example, on the first day of class, when I walked in I saw Zack, saw what he was wearing, noticed his long hair and immediately thought to myself “this guy is chill.” In no way did I think I was rhetorically analyzing Zack, but Monday’s class proved this to be true.  Also, I learned that rhetorical analysis kind of has its own conventions of a genre of thinking, using ethos, logos, and pathos to use rhetorical analysis tools like exigence to analyze things we come across. 

            Also, something that helped me tremendously on my PB1B were the ideas of rewriting a sentence that didn’t sound quite right a few times to get something that makes sense and has less confusing syntax, and also leaving a blank when I’m drawing a blank.  The first one helped me because I noticed some of my sentences were getting complex and sometimes they didn’t make sense or were a little confusing.  Leaving the blank space helped me because when I knew what I wanted to say but didn’t know how to write it, which happens to me more often than I’d like, I could just move on and tie the next part of what I was writing to the idea that will be put into words later.  I didn’t previously do this because I though I’d lose what I was thinking which happened to me a little bit, so I just put the blank with a few key words to remind me of the thoughts brewing for that specific place.  This was also helpful when rewriting sentences as I would sometimes just write the ugly sounding sentence and then go back to it with a clearer mind or look at it from a new angle.  These two ideas, simple in nature were tremendously helpful in improving my writing in my opinion.  My opinion of myself and my work is slightly subjective so we will see what Zack thinks.

PB1B

    When dissecting research papers for their conventions using the SCI generator, I came to the conclusion that either research papers can only be about Decoupling Sensor Networks from Rasterization in Congestion Control, or that the SCI generator was not working properly.  Since I am a person with some level of coherence, I determined the reality to be the latter of the two options and decided to search different types of research papers and think back to the papers that I have read or written during my academic career.  While conducting my own research on research, I found that research papers have a specific set of conventions, but also that different types of research papers have their very own conventions that set them apart from the rest as specificity increases, much like the nesting dolls where the smaller dolls of their own traits build to make the final, large, all encompassing doll.  The conventions that make a research paper a research paper generally have to do with gathering data or facts, analyzing them, and then answering a question, proving a point, or confirming/rejecting a hypothesis.  Research papers have titles that relate to the topic at hand, a brief introduction so the reader knows what the paper is about, quantitative data, graphs, tables, analysis, a conclusion, and finally a list of references if it is not experimental research done by the author him/herself.  Research papers are dry.  They contain no interesting diction or syntax, lack style, and are straightforward and to the point.  They are soulless. When one reads a research paper, the individual is doing so to learn about something that someone else has figured out and decided to make public or gain insight.  To classify research papers into separate sub genres, variables like subject, topic, and purpose come into play that can distinguish an experimental research paper on chemical bonding from the mating patterns of male pufferfish off the coast of Japan. .

    Comic strips are easy to spot.  Immediately when looking at a comic strip the viewer can identify it, but what makes it easily identifiable is its set conventions.  Comic strips are short animations with a small number of characters and tend to have simple detailing.  They have little writing on the strip and what is there generally takes the form of dialogue either from character to character or character to self.  They also contain onomatopoeias to give the comic an auditory angle even though no sound is actually being produced and somewhat take the form of a short still frame movie, with each animation being progressive building off the previous scene.  Comic strips serve a purpose that is to evoke emotion, provide entertainment, or prove a point.  The most prevalent type of comic that one might see today or have seen in the past are political comics.  The authors of these comics try to sway your opinion or point out flaws in their less favored candidate using wit and humor while being brief.  Comics can be an effective platform to persuade and to evoke emotion because they are visually appealing, entertaining, and take only a moment for the viewer to comprehend the purpose of the comic if it has one besides that of pure entertainment.  

    The basic conventions of memes are much like those of comic strips.  They are visuals, being either an animation or a picture with writing on the top and bottom of the picture.  Memes spread ideas, provide advice, are a source of humor throughout the internet primarily on social media, and are used for a person to express themselves.  What a person wants to express determines the picture for the meme they will create and in this sense, each meme is its own genre as each picture has a form and a function that the creator must follow unless they want the collective weight of the social media users of the internet to bear down on them.  For example, the meme with Gene Walder from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1971) is used to display sarcasm and therefore be humorous.  On the other hand, the meme of the duck on a pond, commonly referred to as actual advice mallard, is used for users of the internet to provide advice that is not commonly recognized among the audience viewing the meme.  Each meme has a genre and therefore a text subject that corresponds to the accepted form of the particular meme.

    A generator I found for an interesting genre was a joke generator.  As everyone knows, jokes are intended to make people laugh.  They contain a setup that can vary from only a sentence or two, to an entire story.  They also contain a punchline which tends to be brief which is that part that sets the joke into motion and evokes the response, like pulling that last risky block on a shaky jenga tower that sends it all tumbling to the ground.  Jokes have their own set of genres, such as animal jokes, dirty jokes, racist jokes (unfortunately), blonde jokes (fortunately), walks into a bar jokes, etc. that they can be classified into based on their conventions.  Jokes are easy to filter into genres because they usually only depend on the subject of the joke, whether it's animals, blondes, or jokes about teachers.

Thlog Week One

This week in writing two we began to look at genres and what makes up a genre.  Genres are made up of conventions which is a concept that I found to be interesting because previously when I thought about a genre, I never really thought about specific pieces that when put together can be classified into a certain category.  I really enjoyed this because I usually wouldn't think about the specific conventions that makes a thing that thing.  I think I would always do this subconsciously, but when I actually tried to determine the conventions for a genre, it proved to be harder than I thought and I felt like I couldn’t put it in words (see PB1A).

I think that subconsciously classifying things into genres is similar to first order thinking while actually analyzing genres for their conventions is similar to second order thinking.  Also, I’ve noticed that almost everything has a genre that is belongs to and conventions that make it belong to that genre.  I’m not talking about just literature or music here, but other things like academic subjects or architecture.  For example, conventions like tall marble columns help distinguish Greek architecture from high ceiling domes that characterize Italian architecture.

    We are also learning about first order and second order thinking which is another topic that I find to be particularly interesting.  After reading about first and second order thinking, I realized that I am more of a second order thinker as I have taken course loads heavy in the math and science departments and therefore have been less conditioned when it comes to first order thinking.  I think this is why it’s hard for me to answer those quick freewrite questions in class, because I overthink them.  I thought of an analogy that I think can be applicable to first and second order thinking.  First order thinking is like a river.  It is for the most part free flowing and does what it wants.  It is guided by who we are, our experiences, things we’ve read and people we’ve talked to.  Second order thinking is like the dam in a river.  It stops it, controls it, and determines what passes through and is let to continue to flow in a more orderly fashion.  Thlogs I think can be representative of first order thinking.

Dramatic Genre of Greek Tragedies

A textual genre that we have not discussed in class is the dramatic genre of ancient Greek tragedies written by famed poets and tragic playwrights such as Euripides, Homer, Sophocles, etc.  Conventions that can be found in almost all Greek tragedies include gods, kings, magic, hubris, adultery and a setting of somewhere in ancient Greece like Athens or Corinth.  Other conventions found in these works include love, loss, and pride which either help build to the tragic event, or are a product of it.

            Greek tragedies were written with a lesson for the entire Greek population as the simple plays convey messages and lessons warning against certain acts and thoughts that a person of any social stature was susceptible to. These plays generally warned against hubris (not paying homage, disrespecting, or doubting a god) and adultery or exhibited the fact that prophecies always came true.  When warning against hubris and adultery, a Greek play generally follows a cause and effect style way of going about teaching its lessons.  This can be seen in Euripides’ Bacchae where, in short, a king didn’t recognize the god Dionysus so he was eventually killed in an ironic and extravagant way and the city was in disarray. These tragedies often were about hubris and adultery because it was a common problem among the ancient Greek community that writers sought to combat.

            Greek tragedies were simply written, as they had to be acted out in front of citizens of all types of social, economical, and educational backgrounds.  They contain simple words and plots that were easily understood, as well as asides and soliloquys so someone watching the play rather than reading it can understand what a certain character is thinking and feeling.  Also, because these writings were written to be acted out, they had to be entertaining.  Tools used to this effect include humor, irony, and exaggeration to keep the audience enticed and involved.

            Stylistic elements that characterize a Greek tragedy include dialogue and a chorus.  Most literature that tells a story includes dialogue, but what sets a play or tragedy apart from the rest is that the play is almost all dialogue between the characters.  Because of this, choruses are written into plays.  The author includes a chorus because when the play is acted out, it provides some form of entertainment as well as background information that might not have been able to be integrated into the normal text.  The chorus often explains the setting and describes events and provides information that is crucial for the audience to be able to follow along. 

            Ultimately, an ancient Greek tragedy has many elements that distinguish it from other pieces of literature.  Irony, satire, and asides are characteristics of plays, but heroes, gods, and Greek cities are all conventions that separate Greek plays from the rest.  Greek tragedies, however, have certain conventions that distinguish them from comedies or satyrs, much like the nesting doll that is one smaller.  Death and destruction as an effect of offensive or proud behavior in a Greek setting is a key convention that sets tragedies apart from other pieces of drama.

About Me

Hello all! My name is Gary Ganci as you could probably tell from the title of my blog, and I am a first year pre-bio major with hopes of becoming an orthodontist.  I'm from Fresno, California (glamorous, I know) and am more than stoked to be living in Santa Barbara for the next 4 years.  I love water sports including water polo, swimming, surfing, etc. and hope to complete my dive certification this summer. Other sports and hobbies I'm involved/interested in include snow skiing, fishing, and complaining about my chem lab.  This is my first time blogging so please let me know if I break any unwritten rules or codes of the blogging world. Cheers!