Discussion Forum

I did not think the forum discussion was very useful. It was a good idea but I don’t think we all took it the right way and used it to its potential. This may partly be because I didn’t understand what we were supposed to do until I saw my classmate’s examples, but nonetheless I don’t think I took much away from it. The forum’s goal was to create an environment where we could engage in conversation with our classmates but many of us have too much to do so it isn’t very practical to read everyone’s posts and reply to what they said. I’m not trying to say the idea of the forum is terrible, I just think the execution can be improved.

            The “discussion” forums, especially the second one, just turned into every person’s individual posts with not much linkage between each post. I don’t think this was the goal because after all, it’s supposed to be a discussion. If one person started a conversation and other people replied with substantial opinions, I think it would be more effective. To make the forum discussion more useful we would also need to bring new ideas into the conversation and not just have everyone agree or disagree with whoever posts first. This can also get confusing though if people don’t clarify to whom they are addressing in each post they submit.

            A forum discussion in which we converse over a topic that has more appeal to us would be more interesting to me. If the subject of the forum was something that was controversial and that we all had opinions about, I would find it more engaging and would want to reply to everyone’s post. With a dull topic it sometimes gets to the point where we have nothing to reply to people so we just want to make something up to get our required posts. When students get into that mentality they focus more on the quantity of their posts than the quality. This basically starts the cycle over again because, who wants to read and reply to poor quality posts?

            Another approach that could be taken would be to split the class into halves so that we aren’t talking to as many people. With the whole class, I feel like what I write isn’t really read because it gets lost in a sea of everyone else’s posts. It would also be interesting to have two different discussions going on about completely separate topics where we could chose which discussion we wanted to participate in and put our opinions towards. I really believe if we feel less forced to write about a topic, we’ll put more thought into it and produce more quality posts.

            There are many options and alterations that I think would make the discussion forum more exciting and useful for our class. I like the idea of interacting with my classmates so the forum is a good scheme. I would like to try another one with clarified instructions and interesting articles to discuss.

Entering the Conversation

In Mark Liberman’s blog post, We Need More Bad Science Writers, he discusses the issue that science writers fail to be careful when transferring information from scientific studies to popular writing articles. While this can be for numerous reasons, such as misunderstandings of the results or carelessness in translating scientific lingo, the UPenn professor wants to show everyone how much of an issue it is. Liberman questioned in his blog post “So how can the "health correspondent" for a serious intellectual newspaper be so incredibly careless?” He, along with many other readers in society, cannot begin to fathom why these bad science writers insist on publishing these “spectacularly bad” articles.

            Liberman shows readers how people can take a scientist’s experiment and results and publish an idea that has no evidence behind it. People who publish popular science articles often even completely portray the experiment wrong, saying that the opposite results occurred. This can be an issue for the general public because when given so-called credible sources, they don’t know which to believe. Some people choose to believe the things that they read because it’s very appealing to believe that a pill or some other easy solution can solve their problems.

            Liberman goes on to discuss how one scientist posted completely wrong information about how omega 3 supposedly increased cognitive levels in 11-year-old boys. The article that claimed that fish oil pills helped school children concentrate more in school actually caused rates of fish oil pill sales to increase, even though there was no evidence supporting these claims. There was actually evidence supporting the opposing side. Experiments have shown that the omega 3 actually does not help with concentration, and in fact causes slower reaction times in the experimental groups.

            It is not always easy to distinguish false information from fact but one place to start is to evaluate the source that published the information according to its credibility. This can be tricky though, because as Liberman said, authors can maintain a good reputation and keep their careers even if they continually publish “spectacular failures.” Liberman revealed a reason to be relieved though because it is becoming more popular for bad science articles to be accompanied by an article that shows the truth behind them.  Counter articles that are created to put writers in their place are a good way to determine what is true or false in a report. Another solution to dealing with false published science is to do background research when you think that a claim an author makes is fishy.

            Liberman’s blog post goes to show that you can’t always believe what you read, even if you think the source is credible. Sometimes even people with good reputations publish things when they have no clue what they are talking about. Writers are under a lot of pressure and will sometimes twist the truth in order to create an idea worth writing about that people will read. Maybe the solution is just to get these people fired. I don’t think it’s that simple.

Online Writing

Writing online can be both dangerous and helpful to others. What one reads online should not always be trusted because the validity of information online is not very high. Anyone can post an article online and soon it will be read by hundreds of people and passed on through links and other posts, when it wasn’t even true in the first place. On the other hand, some of what is posted online is true but we can only tell by evaluating the source from which it came. We’ve been taught time and time again how to evaluate sources based on their “.whatever” ending and the messages that the author’s post and yet people still trust unreliable information they read.

            What we post online stays there forever. We can’t completely erase anything that is present on a web page. Information posted on the internet can easily be copied and edited by other people. While this makes it easy to relay information, it can also have its cons. Someone could potentially take something you wrote and edit it to make it seem like you said something you didn’t. People can also keep information that is posted on the internet on their own computers forever, even if you delete the webpage.

            Publishing on the internet can make it easy to spread word. A message can be transferred to millions of people in a matter of minutes once it is posted on the web. With the exponentially increasing use of the internet among people of all ages, this rate is getting even faster. These days, people check the internet hourly (or even more frequently) on their iPods, Blackberries, laptops, etc. Update ourselves on the world around us is now just a touch away.

            When we post to our blogs, the only people who look at our posts are our classmates. It’s possible to other people to view them but it is less likely that they will come across them in their searches. It is a good way to share our opinions with the class but if we wanted to share with more people we would need to take a different approach. Most of the information that reaches millions of people is about top stories or important events, while what we write in blogs is just an expression of our opinions and is not written to be read by that many people.

People use the internet so casually these days and don’t realize the consequences of what they post. Even employers and universities across the country use social networking sites to evaluate their potential employees and students. Some kids start posting things on Facebook about themselves in middle and high school and this information remains online for the rest of their lives. The information that people put on some of these sites can ruin their careers. Almost all sites these days have privacy settings where people can make their information more or less visible to others but not everyone knows how to use them and even some people who do don’t take advantage of it.  

Feedback and Critique

Good criticism of someone else’s writing involves helping them adjust all aspects of their paper in order to perfect it. Feedback on a paper is very important in writing papers because your paper is your words and will always make sense to you but you need to see what it sounds like too another person. The sentences we create may seem clear and obvious to us while they are awkward and confusing to others. We can read through our own papers hundreds of times and still not realize mistakes we made but when someone else reads them, they can notice the first time.

            I think I am helpful when I criticize others’ work because I like suggesting another view they can look at their idea from. I also think its helpful to make their sentences flow better from a reader’s point of view. When critiquing someone’s paper it is important to make sure their ideas make sense to you and correct them if they are organized wrong or in a manner that isn’t clear to others. It can be hard to critique other people’s work because your suggestions could sound rude or aloof. Also, it is difficult to try not to change their ideas and what they are trying to say when you move their words around or adjust their sentences.

            Criticizing other people’s work can be especially hard when you don’t know the person and are not comfortable telling them what to do. It is hard to criticize someone you don’t know because you don’t want to come off as rude or mean to them. You also don’t want to sound bossy or like a know-it-all when giving feedback because it’s their paper and changing too much of their paper can change the ideas they were originally trying to convey.

            The best advice someone can give me when critiquing my paper is to expand on my ideas and show me a different view point because sometimes when we are thinking about something for a long time we get stuck on certain ideas of it and have trouble thinking outside of the box. It is also helpful for someone to tell me when my wording is awkward or if I should use a synonym or substitute for certain words to make my message clearer.

            Getting feedback from many different people is a very good idea because each person’s eyes can realize a mistake that all the others couldn’t since when we read we often skip over little irrelevant words. Also, three different opinions or views on the topic you are writing about are more beneficial than 1 view. If you take the ideas of all 3 people and reconstruct your paper with their suggestions it will be a lot more perfect than the paper with one person’s suggestions.

            Constructive criticism helps people with the grammar, syntax, and context issues in their paper. It helps expand the writer’s ideas while not replacing them or changing their views. It focuses on the fine tweaking so that the author can produce a more perfected final copy.

Shitty First Drafts

In Anne Lamott’s essay Shitty First Drafts, she discusses the idea that one must start somewhere when writing a paper, even if that is just with a jumble of sentences, some of which may be unnecessary. Lamott claims that all writers start with some type of shitty first draft and that is the only way they end up with their later, terrific drafts. Lamott explains that even people who write for a living often have roadblocks in their mind and have to develop from shitty first drafts.

            Reading Lamott’s essay was very encouraging to a writer like myself, who can sit and look at a blank Word document for hours while I brainstorm in an effort to find something to write. She stated that very few writers know what the outcome will be of what they are writing before they write it. I can relate to this because sometimes it takes a few paragraphs before you can figure out where you’re going with something. Once we start writing the ideas come to us quicker as we “get the juices flowing” in our minds. Realizing that this feeling of “pulling teeth” that Lamott mentioned is common was very encouraging as well because sometimes it just feels like I’m grasping for something to write and it seems really forced.

            I liked Lamott’s idea about writing a “child’s draft” first, because as she said “You need to start somewhere.” It’s a good way to get all your ideas out there. This is another article I wish someone would have shown me in high school, like Robert’s How to Say Nothing in 500 Words. I also enjoyed her saying that the first is the down draft, where you just get everything down on paper, and the second is the up draft, where you fix it all up. I like this approach better than how they made us write in high school, where every sentence had to be grammatically perfect and sophisticated from the start.

            Lamott’s discussion on all the little voices in your head that prevent you from writing what first comes to your fingers was very humorous to me. That was probably what I could relate to most in the essay. I feel like those voices, that say “that’s too boring” or tell you that what you’ve written just wont work, definitely cause me to hold back sometimes when I’m writing. Her exercise with the mice, which was also funny, is actually a good idea of a way to clear my mind because I like silly visual things like that.

            The section about perfectionism eased some of my anxieties because it made me realize that I often strive to create perfect sentences and feel like I’ve failed but Lamott suggests that perfect sentences leave no room for playfulness and other aspects that make a paper interesting.  She also insists that when we strive for perfection we cramp up our muscles that allow us to write freely.

            Anne Lamott’s essay Shitty First Drafts was very helpful for those times when I feel like there is absolutely nothing to write. She encouraged writers to let it all flow out even if you don’t know where you’re going with it. Now I know if I’m in a rut with no ideas and pages to write, all I have to do is write a Shitty First Draft. 

What is it?

A rhetorical analysis is the discussion of a piece of text that is made to send a message. It tears apart every aspect of the text to understand the speaker’s motivation for creating the text. When a rhetorical analysis is composed it searches beyond the surface look of the text and into the persuasive details of it. The analysis looks at how the speaker appeals to the three points of the rhetorical triangle: pathos, logos, and ethos.

            To start a rhetorical analysis, one must first understand the situation for which the text was composed, the exigence. You have to find out what the author’s motive was in making the text, why he created it in the first place. By understanding the occasion and context for which it was writing, you can then analyze the author’s intentions better. Along with this, you need to decide who the speaker is. Whether it is a company, a private sponsor, or the government, who the text is coming from makes a big difference on how we interpret it. When look at the author one should also interpret how he establishes his personal credibility. How does he make people think they should listen to him?

            The speakers intended audience should also be considered. Is the text directed toward the general population, kids, parents, or maybe business people? This also reveals how the speaker appeals to certain aspects of the audience’s personality and takes advantage of their opinions to create a more persuasive ad.

            Next, the author’s intention and message should be analyzed. You need to see why the author created it: out of anger, concern, to convince you to buy something, etc. You can also analyze how he uses certain techniques to portray the message in a persuasive manner. It is important to understand his message and how he makes it appeal to us because we can easily be sucked into things if we don’t take the time to step back and analyze it.

            In my rhetorical analysis, I plan to first describe the surface information presented in the video. Then I will analyze the intent of each aspect and what the producer was appealing to when he created it. I will include information about who the speaker is and how he speaks to his audience. I will also incorporate who the intended audience is and what opinions they have that the author appeals to. I will talk a lot about the producers appeal to pathos because the video is very emotional and that appeal is the strongest. I will also analyze how the producer could have better appealed to ethos because that is the weakest. Although the video was persuasive, it could be more effective with stronger appeals to logos and ethos.

            A complete rhetorical analysis includes information on the speaker, audience, message, and persuasive methods. It is important to analyze the rhetoric of ads, or any text, so we can understand how the author appeals to our personalities in order to persuade us.

Propaganda

During World War II, the government and other private sponsors were willing to create any image to convince people to believe their opinions. They installed fear and hate through their posters and used many methods of persuasion, including rhetoric, to do so. They put the citizens in fear to keep them under their control and persuade them into doing things like buying war bonds. The posters told people to save their waste because anything could be used to make weapons in the depression that they were in. The posters advocated keeping quite about the war, buying only what you need, and portrayed the Japanese and Germans as barbaric and evil.

            At this point in time, propaganda is usually significantly less offensive than it was during the forties because everyone is supposed to be considered equal now and it is unacceptable to rudely portray groups of people. In the 1940s posters made jokes about women being able to do men’s jobs. An occurrence like that would be revolted against and improper in current times.

            The topics of propaganda now are very different than those from sixty years ago. As times have changed, so has the propaganda used to portray peoples’ opinions and messages. Now many posters revolve around the oil spill, the War in Iraq, and the president, who is commonly targeted by propagandists. With all the new technology, the government and any business can get their message out a lot faster than the out-dated propaganda posters could do. They can project their opinions through TV shows, radios, and many other forms of technology and the speed of word travelling is much faster.

            These days, news shows like 60 minutes and NBC Dateline discuss current issues and implant ideas into viewers’ heads as did the posters of the 40s. Shows like The 700 Club, a Christian organization that talks about current issue share their biased, fictional opinions with viewers who, since many don’t know better, believe them. They think the show is credible when frankly, it’s junk.

            Two of the pictures I have attached have to do with the recent oil spill in the gulf. The one with the little boy shows how vacations have been ruined and kids disappointed because they can’t play in the clear ocean without getting oil on them. It also shows some dead animals that are covered in oil and can’t be saved. This is negative advertisement for the BP Company but could also advocate people helping with the recovery of the gulf.  The other is the BP logo, which is closely associated with the company in viewers’ minds, and in the picture it seems to be leaking in to the water and contaminating the area. It calls the mess up “not so slick, actually” which is ironic for an oil company so it sabotages their reputation.

            The other picture I have added shows George Bush standing with a group of representatives from different oil companies. It was likely created by someone who believes that Bush started the war primarily to get oil from the Middle Eastern countries. By removing the leader of the country from power, the can retrieve oil from his land.

            Contemporary propaganda has the same motives as propaganda from 60 years ago, only about different topics. These days, someone’s message can get to millions of people faster and therefore it is easier to convey one’s opinion.