Blog #5?? I've lost count already

How accurate is this??

Good evening and happy Monday! Usually I'm not a complete hater of Mondays, but this particular Monday I am definitely dragging my feet. I've been unusually tired the whole day, and I am super sore from yesterday's leg day! Okay, enough complaining and on to the important stuff.

So, after discussing discourse community in today's class and also reading Swales lecture, I see that this stuff is pretty complex... Swales must have done a lot of research and observation to see that there are so many communities and each have their own set of rules and norms. He notes that discourse communities are not just audiences that a group caters to, but are much more complex. He explains that all discourse communities all exhibit certain characteristics and even gives a guideline, listing the 6 characteristics that each discourse community has:

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals.

2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members.

3. A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback.

4. A discourse community utilizes and hence possess one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims. 

5. In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis. 

6. A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise.   

So, at first glance this list looks pretty long and confusing. For me, a great way to showcase these characteristics and make them easier to understand is with an example. A group that I belong to is the cook/baker group. Now this may seem a little broad, but as someone who has cooked and baked for years, I have a good understand of the terms used in cooking. The first characteristic, which states that each discourse community has a set of agreed goals, and this is definitely prominent in cooking. The goal of chefs across all boards all have the same goal of producing a dish that tastes and looks appealing. The next characteristic discusses the communications of people within the same discourse communities, chefs all over speak in a way that may confuse people who don't cook. Words such as sauté, julienne, and flambé are words that all chefs know and understand. The next characteristic covers the mechanisms to provide information and chefs do this is a number of ways, they share recipes from recipe books to online blogs. Characteristic 4 states that each discourse community possess one or more genres in communication and this is true of chefs. They have their own way of communicating between each other and it usually in the form of instructions. Such as telling another chef to prepare a dish, or communications with other works such as sending out an order. The fifth characteristic goes into more detail on the specific terms exchanged by each discourse. Chefs used abbreviated words to work more efficiently. Terms such as evoo (extra virgin olive oil) and a pinch (one-quarter teaspoon) and specific lexis between chefs. The last characteristic speaks of the levels of the people that fall within the same discourse communities. From established chefs to home-cooks, the different levels of chefs varies from highly skilled to just starting out. They all fall under the same category and have general characteristics that unite them.  

Hopefully the above paragraph wasn't too hard to get through. I know it was very long but I just didn't see a good part to separate it at. If you got through this whole thing, props to you! It took me a lot longer to write than I had hoped, but that's probably because I'm also simultaneously watching the debate and wow... definitely distracting!! 

See you all in classssss!

Blog #4 let's goo

Me reading all the articles for the blog...

Good afternoon and (not so) happy Sunday! (Since I have pushed off all my homework until today..)

Not sure if you guys know this, but goldfish have a higher attention span than we do (well a lot of us, including me) so you can just imagine how long it took me to read through all the articles even though they weren't even that long...  

Okay, now on to the important stuff... 

I started off reading the JSTOR Daily articles and then went into the op-eds which was definitely a mistake. The JSTOR daily's were really well-written, well-supported, and were filled with information and evidence. Moving on to the op-eds, they were very opinion-oriented and lacked proper support. I, like many of you will probably agree, tend to search for hard facts to convince me of something. Op-eds tend to omit that, and so they were hard to fully get in to. While both fall under the "article" genre, JSTOR daily articles and op-eds have very different strategies to engage the reader. Op-eds rely on emotional appeals, which the Editorial Board of "Donald Trump's bet: We are all Chumps" definitely did in their article. Discussing how far Trump has come, despite the fact that he has not released his medical or tax records, they include a statement from Trump's son Eric who points out that even if Trump supplied his tax records, they would be released to an audience that has little to no knowledge about what they mean. He says they would look for anything in the record to discredit Trump. The article then follows this statement stating, "he means us dumb voters," which works to get us fired up by the use of pathos. 

Throwback to my last blog 

Sooooo, on to JSTOR Daily articles! (I know you all are on the edge of your seat right now..)

Although a bit longer, JSTOR Daily articles were definitely the ones that held my attention for longer. Hard facts, I like those. These articles were filled with facts, logic, and all that good stuff. They work to minimize doubt by presenting a view with sufficient evidence to back it up. 

One of the articles that really intrigued me was "How Does the Language of Headlines Work? The Answer May Surprise You." by Chi Luu. As a computational linguist, with advanced degrees in Theoretical Linguistics and Literature, I can already tell that the article will be very well-researched. Her article focuses on headlines, and how much power a group of words can be. When deciding which 6 articles to read, the titles/headlines were what brought me in, and made me want to learn more about the topic. Headlines are the first thing to grab your attention, and are aimed to make you want to keep reading. Headlines are meant to lure us in with their mysterious titles. She references a 2015 study, where researchers discussed the technique of forward referencing. This is where the pronoun is placed before what they are referencing. The example she gives is, "She did it, she read a book," which is an effective way to engage readers. With the inclusion of a case study, I am more likely to stay engaged and it might even work to cause me to agree with what the writer is discussing.  

So, as you can tell I prefer JSTOR articles over op-eds. They just seem to be more effective and engaging. 

Are you tired of me using this little guy yet?? 

Okay that's all I got! Now time for some tacos :P

Blog 3

Just to start off, I just want to say that the research for this project was actually pretty fun. Looking at memes I have seen for years and finally learning their background and where they came from is super interesting! It was pretty hard to choose one, but I think I found the perfect one...

This baby is pretty well known... and I've seen him all around the internet. But where and when did this image come about? 

So, this is known as the "success kid" or "I hate sandcastles" meme was posted in August of 2007 by Laney Griner. She captured this hilarious picture of her 11-month year old baby making a cute, smug expression at the beach.

Ever since, this baby has been used in many memes and still is an internet sensation! Knobel and Lankshear's article on memes defines three set characteristics that successful memes inhibit. The three characteristics are fidelity, fecundity, and longevity. Since most of you already read the article, I won't go into great detail about each of these. Fidelity refers to components of the image that allow it to be replicated and passed on. Fecundity is the actual rate at which these components are spread and longevity is discussing how long the replications are popular. Which, as you all know, this meme definitely encompasses all three of those components. 

As this meme discusses, back in 2015 Laney Griner reached out to the world and used the popularity of her kid's image to launch a GoFundMe account in hopes of raising money for her husband's transplant. It was very successful and they were able to raise well over their goal. It just goes to show how such a popular meme can have amazing effects. 

But on to a less serious note, here are some of my favorite memes with this image.

I'm sure we can all relate...

Hope you enjoyed!

Blog 2

       Just as Professor Flewelling discusses how her students' first thoughts jump to music when genres are brought up, that is exactly where my mind first went to. The next thought I had was that there are actually a lot of different genres of writing. There are many types of writing and each has its own unique purpose. There are cookbooks, which are more informative and give direction, and then there are blogs, which are more personal and descriptive. These are just 2 of the many genres of writing there are. In my many years of attending school, in addition to my life outside of school, I have encountered many different types of writing. In school, I have encountered writing which has the purpose of teaching and assisting in learning, and then there is my internship, where writing is more geared toward using writing in order to describe a product and advertise for it. There are many other forms of writing I have encountered in my life, such as instruction manuals or fictional books, which each have their own unique style and purpose. It is exciting to think of just how many different types of writing are out there and how a lot these writings aren't even thought of as a type of writing.

       I found the article "Teaching Critical Genre Awareness" by Amy Devitt to be very interesting because it really made me consider just how many sources of writing are circulating around the world, and how each has its own impact on the world. She explains just how important it is to be aware of genres and discusses how genre teaching can be "formulaic and constraining, if genres are taught as forms without social or cultural meaning. Genre teaching can also be enlightening and freeing, if genres are taught as part of a larger critical awareness." (337) It all depends on how it is presented, and what message is trying to be conveyed. Just as many of you can relate, throughout school, we have been taught the 5 paragraph method of essay writing. This, in my opinion was not for the best, because it presents the 5 paragraph method as a standard, and students very rarely steer away from that style of writing. It leads to a dry looking essay and I can just imagine how upset professors get when they notice it is the typical 5 paragraph style. Devitt discusses this phenomenon when she describes how when people use a genre, they tend to adhere to the ideology of the genre. By using the 5 paragraph method as an example, what she means to say by that is that when people think of writing an essay they automatically write in the 5 paragraph style, without even realizing it. They first introduce their topic, write their thesis, and have 3 supporting paragraphs to go into further detail. Next they summarize what is above and conclude their essay. Devitt also discusses how much power is given to the various genre ideologies and that is definitely true of the 5 paragraph essay method. It is widely known and is how most students write.

       Luckily, there are a lot of other different genres of writing out there, that are not as drab and boring. A good example would be this blog! I like the fact that we are able to demonstrate our creativity and go in any direction we decide to. It allows us to better showcase our personality and sparks more interest. The purpose of each genre of writing is different and has a different effect on the writer. Through Devitt's article, she is hoping to spread the message to educators that it is their responsibility to enlighten people about the freedoms of genres and present it in a way that entices them rather than boring them. I definitely agree with her thinking and I feel as though I am already becoming more aware to the different genres and the ideologies that are paired alongside them.