Response for April 27th Articles

For tonight’s homework, we read three articles. The first article we read was called ‘The Ecology of Genre’ by Anis Bawarshi. The passage from this article that stood out the most to me was when Bawarshi stated “We create our environments – our rhetorical situations – as we write within them; that is, we create our contexts as we create our texts. And genre is at the heart of this ecological/rhetorical process”. This statement stood out to me because it is very true. I believe that our environments are created by using rhetoric, which in turn created new and/or improving genres.

The second article we read was called ‘The Rhetorical Situation of the Scientific Paper and the “Appearance” of Objectivity’ by Matthew C. Allen. The passage that stood out in this article was in the very first paragraph when he stated “Rhetoric is often perceived as the art of persuasion, while science is generally seen as the art of demonstration. This idea implies, to use a figure of speech, that rhetoric and science should not be seen together in public”. I liked this passage because it added a little bit of humor to it which let us as readers know that the article isn’t as formal and serious as we thought it was going to be jumping into it, but at the same time makes a very good point in defining those two words that should not be used together because they contradict each other.

The third and final article we read for tonight was called ‘Young Scholars in First Year Writing – College Admissions Essay: A Genre of Masculinity’ by Sarah-Kate Magee. The passage I found in this article to most stand out to me was when she stated “The writing of female writers in this genre has masculine characteristics. In other words, the genre seems to influence women’s writing style, perhaps in a way that is different from what Flynn accounted for”. This passage basically sums up what she is trying to point out throughout the whole essay. Women and men may have writings that are somewhat different from each other, but they have a lot of similarities also. Women’s writings do what Flynn didn’t believe them to do, which is carrying many masculine traits. Overall, this was my favorite reading out of the three readings we had to do for tonight.

Response for April 25th Articles

The first article we read for today was titled ‘Navigating Genres’ by Kerry Dirk. The passage that stood out to me in this article was when she said “In other words, Bitzer is saying that when something new happens that requires a response, someone must create that first response. Then when that situation happens again, another person uses the first response as a basis for the second, and eventually everyone who encounters this situation is basing his/her response on the previous ones, resulting in the creation of a new genre”. This passage really helped me with the concept of genre. It described it in a different way than just giving a book definition. It gave an example that was easy to follow and helped in grasping the concept.

The second article we read for today was titled ‘Teaching Critical Genre Awareness’ by Amy Devitt. The passage that stood out in this article was when she stated “With genres understood today as actions in social contexts, genres become embedded in the assumptions, values, and beliefs of the groups in power as any genre emerges, develops, and changes. To teach a particular genre is to teach that genre’s context”. This article basically is laying out the fact that in order to teach someone about a particular genre, you have to first know yourself what the context of that genre is and be able to accurately explain it. Also, it is saying that genres develop and change so a person must thoroughly know about it in order to be able to teach someone else about it.

These articles have honestly helped me to better understand the concept of genre. Genre, in my own words, is basically when someone does something that is of importance to others and others begin to do the same thing, it creates the definition of genre. It is pretty much what everyone knows to be that genre. The example that Kerry Dirk gave about country music helped me to better understand the concept greatly. Dirk’s article seemed to help me more so than Devitt’s article did. Dirk’s article was written in a more understandable student tone, while Devitt’s article was harder to pick up on and understand.

Response for April 20th Articles

The first article we read for today was called ‘Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict, and Diversity’ written by Ann Johns. One passage that stuck out to me in this reading was when she said “As this discussion indicates, individuals often affiliate with several communities at the same time, with varying levels of involvement and interest. People may join a group because they agree politically, because they want to socialize, or because they are interested in a specific sport or pastime”. This quote stuck out to me because it is very true. I feel like high school is a good example of this. In high school, I joined two or three different groups and clubs that were in no way related just because I was interested in what each group was all about.

The second article we read for today’s class was ‘The Idea of Community in the Study of Writing’ by Joseph Harris. One quote that stood out to me in this article was when at the beginning when they were introducing the author. It said “Harris argues that the word ‘community’ is empty and sentimental and that it has no positive opposing term. He ends the article by arguing that the term community should only be used to describe what happens in very specific and local groups”. Although this was not part of the actual article itself, I believe that it proves a very specific point that Harris is trying to make.
Harris obviously challenges discourse communities by stating that he doesn’t even like the word communities to be used in that definition. Johns challenges more so the topic of the academic community than discourse communities. I believe that neither one of these articles have changed the way that I thought about discourse communities really. Only gave more specific examples and a better chance to follow up on what the definition means to each individual person. I think the reason we’ve spent so much time on this topic is because it is thought to be a very important topic to learn. In order to fully know what is going on, you have to know the good side and bad side of the topic so you can understand.

Response for April 18th Articles

“Engagement entails defining a “common enterprise” that newcomers and old-timers pursue together to develop “interpersonal relationships” and “a sense of interacting trajectories that shape identities in relation to one another”.” This is from the first article I read called ‘Identity, Authority, and Learning to Write in New Workplaces’. I believe that this passage is an important one. It is basically stating that engaging in things together as a whole instead of working on things as separate parts is way better because you get to make relationships with the people you work with and learn how to work as a team. If you do not decide to work as a team in the workplace, things can easily fall apart.

“However, since writing centers rely on building successful relationships with students, consultants must understand how to initiate effective interaction with all students, even those with subjects outside their comfort zone”. This passage comes from the second article that we had to read for today called ‘Finding Harmony in Disharmony: Engineering and English Studies’. This passage really stood out to me. It is basically bringing up the point of this whole article by stating that writing center workers have to learn how to handle students who come in and need help writing papers about things that the writing center workers are not familiar with. And although it would seem easier for them to help a English student than an engineering student, that is not usually the case. The writing center workers learn to familiarize themselves with the different subjects they have to help students write papers about.

“We accept the idea that our knowledge is shaped by our language”. I picked this passage out of the last article we had to read for today titled ‘Engineering Writing/Writing Engineering’. I believe that this quote is important to the whole article in a sense that our language teaches us many new things every day. Everyone has a different type of language that they use on a daily basis, and one who is writing a paper about engineering may use a different language than one who writes about a book they had to read for an English class. Engineers have a completely different way of writing their ‘technical’ papers than any other type of writing.

I believe that Wardle discusses discourse communities throughout her whole article. She talks about them by stating her own personal view on how throughout her life she has experienced language in ways that she has not experienced before. This taught me that when I write in my profession, I’m going to need to open my eyes to the different forms of writing in the different professions. I believe that Windsor approaches the topic more formally than Johnson, Clark, and Burton did. Windsor uses big words and phrases that people may not understand if they weren’t smart about that topic in general.

Response to articles for 4/13/11

The first reading we did for today was ‘Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking)’. This article was basically written for us as the audience. It was written knowing that we would need to use it as a basis of our writings. She gave the readers a murder case and five simple facts about it. Then she told the students to act as if they were investigating the scene of the crime as a policeman, and to write a police report on what they found. The next thing she asked them to do was write a coroner’s report, as if they were the coroner themselves. Then they had to write a eulogy and a closing argument from the victim’s lawyer. This article basically laid out what genre was, and how genre differs from person to person.

The next article we were supposed to read was about ‘Discourse’. This article really confused me, except for when he mentioned that discourse is a sort of “identity kit”. This basically said to me that that everyone is connected in some way, shape, or form and it’s basically just how you’re connected that makes you realize you have your own “identity kit”. It is basically culture that ties everyone together in some way.

I believe that we read these articles together because genre and discourse are so very commonly connected. Genre is not only applied to writing, but also to everyday life. Discourses are basically genres within how you speak to one another. Discourses cannot easily be learned. It is not something you can be taught, but is something you must learn through experience basically on your own. This is why I believe that discourses are hard to join, as Gee suggested in his article.

Response for April 11th- Article on Resume Writing

“Rules, in other words, can seem to make life – and writing situations – easier to navigate”. When reading this article about resumes, this passage seemed to stick out to me. I believe this quote is very true. I would rather have to write a paper on something that laid out the directions exactly how I was supposed to do it and give details and examples of it rather than having to write a paper on a very broad topic and not being given any directions. I believe, however, that it depends on the person and the situation as to whether a person likes or follows the rules. If it is rules going along with a class assignment, most often people are willing to follow them. If they are other rules, sometimes people pick and choose whether or not they want to follow them.

“Resumes are understood as mechanical texts; give me the slots, students say, and we’ll fill them in”. I also found this quote in the reading and agree with it too. It ties in well with the rest of the article by saying that we need direction. I personally like the way a typical resume is set up, because if I’m given a heading and told to elaborate on it I can easily go to town writing. I also agree with it because the headings are usually precise more so than broad. It is way easier to elaborate on a precise subject than to be given a broad subject and told to write a paragraph about it. In that case, you don’t really know what the instructor wants you to talk about.

I will attach my cover letter and resume to blogger as soon as I upload it to the website.

Response for April 4th- Reading Chapters 1-6

After reading through the first six chapters in ‘The Non-Designers Design Book’, I learned many things that I did not once know. The main thing I picked up on was the four basic design principles. I never thought about it in detail before, but in order to make a piece of writing look good and more professional you have to factor in the four principles which are contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. Without these things, a piece of writing will look very dull and boring, or sometimes even messy and frustrating to read.

The first chapter just talked about all of them in general, and how they complete one another. The second chapter talked about proximity. I never once knew, but soon learned, that proximity is grouping related items together so that the piece you are creating flows and the piece is seen as “one cohesive group rather than a bunch of unrelated bits”. This chapter also stated that groups of information that are not similar or related to each other should not be near each other. Everything in this chapter seemed to be all about organization. I didn’t even think in depth about this until further reading into the chapter.

The third chapter talked about alignment. The most important thing I learned from this chapter is that when creating a written piece or an advertisement of some sort, I cannot just throw words or phrases on the page without having proper alignment. I thought it was cool that the book described it as the “slightly-messy-kitchen effect” by pretty much saying that you can get overwhelmed if you walk into a kitchen and there is things all over the place. But if you walk into that same kitchen and everything is organized and in its place, you feel more at home.

The fourth chapter talks about repetition. From this chapter I learned that I am supposed to repeat some aspects of the piece that I’m working on, basically to get the audience’s attention and bring out pieces of my work that are more important. There are many different ways that I could choose to be repetitive with my piece, including using a certain font that is interesting, using a different colored font, making something bold so it stands out, etc. I learned that repetition is not only important to make a point, but also it is important to make the whole piece of work unified.

The fifth chapter is about the concept of contrast. I learned that contrast is basically created by combining two elements that are different to make the page pop out or stand out in a way. It makes the reader want to read on, or at least gets them interested in what they are going to read. I also learned that the only way to make the contrast work is by not being a “wimp”. The book states that you cannot contrast the color brown with the color black and expect for people to see the difference or want to read on in your piece of work.

I believe the reason why we are studying design in writing in the professions because design makes a piece of work what it is. Design is going to be in everything I do for the rest of my life, whether I want to believe it or not. Although I am not any kind of design or art major, there are still going to be times throughout my career as a community health major that I am going to have to use the concept of design in my daily work. I’m not even positive what I want to do with my major yet, which is another reason why I’m happy that I’m learning this information now. You never know when it could pop up in your future, and I personally am glad that I learned these four techniques.