This portfolio was put together to highlight several areas that I feel are very strong in my writing. Each piece shows a different aspect of writing style, and together they give a pretty good picture of my overall writing skills.
The collaborative project highlights my versatility as a writer. It begins with an essay written by me that serves as an argumentative piece setting up the argument for the whole project. In this piece I use research by Jonah Lehrer in the book “How we decide” to create an argument for religion being inseparable from our decisions, and by extension politics. I'm very proud of this piece- I think that the use of scientific research about how we actually make decisions lends a lot of strength to our overall argument. It makes the argument not about how people are biased, but about solid facts about how people's brains actually work, a much harder position to attack.
The second part of the collaborative project that I wrote is a satirical list of 10 more commandments, highlighting the areas where religion affects politics. I think that satire is probably my strongest genre- this piece goes a long way in making the audience really think about our argument. The last part that I did was a political cartoon; this again falls into the genre of satire, and again uses humor to pull the audience into our argument.
The next project in my portfolio is a rewrite of RP3. My original RP3 was not a very strong argument. It used some research to make the point that manned spaceflight is a goal that we need to pursue as a nation. The problem was, I focused on the broad issues, but not the issues that matter to most people, and as a result it wasn't very persuasive. In the rewrite, I brought themes from my RP4 to the piece, focusing on issues that have a more direct effect on the readers, such as budget and jobs provided. This resulted in the piece becoming much more effective for the intended audience.
I have not yet chosen the blog posts that I am going to use, but I plan on choosing those that highlight more of my strengths.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Reflective Essay
Throughout the semester, I have been working on the many different genres of this class. Some were genres that I was used to writing, like the persuasive paper. Others, like the Pecha Kucha, were very new to me. The fact that these had their different challenges made the class very enjoyable, and very interesting. I wanted my portfolio to really show how my personality came through in each of the different pieces, and I really feel like I was able to do that.
My first piece took a look at how our freedom of speech was being minimized by many different areas of our world. This piece showed a very personal side of me, and it really showed my views on the freedom of speech. This was probably more of the easier pieces to write because it required very little research and really allowed me to express my opinion. Though this was a shorter paper, it gave me a chance to do what I was really good at. This compared to something like the academic essay (RP3) was very easy.
RP2 was a fairly interesting paper to write. It was a mix of both research and argument, and though it took some time to research, it still allowed me to use my “campaign ad” style of writing. I have always been better at writing papers and stories that were very uplifting and when writing about government, patriotic. This stems from my experience working in the State Capital and on multiple campaigns. It is noticeable in my later pieces that I have a very commercial-like writing. Though this is great for writing a 30-second TV spot for a political candidate, it does not work to well in an academic essay.
When writing RP3, I had a little bit of trouble coming up with a good academic feeling to it. I have never had to write in that style. So, the approach I took was to look at it as an informative essay, and then allow the research to be the persuasive part. When looking back on this paper to re-write it, I realized that I had a very uplifting style. This is not what I was trying to do, but it just turned into that kind of paper. When I rewrote the paper, I made sure make it much more academic. I added a little more of the research to make my paper very academic, and I also took away of the patriotic tone.
The Pecha Kucha was probably the strangest assignment that I have ever done in college. Though it was very different than my other projects, it was pretty fun. I felt like I was able to allow myself to come through in the presentation. It was a mixture of both academia and that patriotic style that I enjoy. At first I felt like this project was going to be very difficult because it was so new to me, but upon creating the Pecha Kucha, I felt it was a good way to approach the RP3. Instead of the reader having to guess what I was meaning, they can hear and see what I was trying to say. Overall, this was the project that allowed me to express everything that I wanted to.
On a whole, my portfolio will really give an example of what I am as a person. There are both academic portions, and the reader can see who I am as a person. My hope is that everyone who looks at my project will be able to understand why free speech is so important to me, and also understand who I am as a person. I am very proud of the way my portfolio came together, and I hope my readers get as excited about free speech as I am!
My first piece took a look at how our freedom of speech was being minimized by many different areas of our world. This piece showed a very personal side of me, and it really showed my views on the freedom of speech. This was probably more of the easier pieces to write because it required very little research and really allowed me to express my opinion. Though this was a shorter paper, it gave me a chance to do what I was really good at. This compared to something like the academic essay (RP3) was very easy.
RP2 was a fairly interesting paper to write. It was a mix of both research and argument, and though it took some time to research, it still allowed me to use my “campaign ad” style of writing. I have always been better at writing papers and stories that were very uplifting and when writing about government, patriotic. This stems from my experience working in the State Capital and on multiple campaigns. It is noticeable in my later pieces that I have a very commercial-like writing. Though this is great for writing a 30-second TV spot for a political candidate, it does not work to well in an academic essay.
When writing RP3, I had a little bit of trouble coming up with a good academic feeling to it. I have never had to write in that style. So, the approach I took was to look at it as an informative essay, and then allow the research to be the persuasive part. When looking back on this paper to re-write it, I realized that I had a very uplifting style. This is not what I was trying to do, but it just turned into that kind of paper. When I rewrote the paper, I made sure make it much more academic. I added a little more of the research to make my paper very academic, and I also took away of the patriotic tone.
The Pecha Kucha was probably the strangest assignment that I have ever done in college. Though it was very different than my other projects, it was pretty fun. I felt like I was able to allow myself to come through in the presentation. It was a mixture of both academia and that patriotic style that I enjoy. At first I felt like this project was going to be very difficult because it was so new to me, but upon creating the Pecha Kucha, I felt it was a good way to approach the RP3. Instead of the reader having to guess what I was meaning, they can hear and see what I was trying to say. Overall, this was the project that allowed me to express everything that I wanted to.
On a whole, my portfolio will really give an example of what I am as a person. There are both academic portions, and the reader can see who I am as a person. My hope is that everyone who looks at my project will be able to understand why free speech is so important to me, and also understand who I am as a person. I am very proud of the way my portfolio came together, and I hope my readers get as excited about free speech as I am!
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Short, Reflective Essay
This portfolio reflects a range of rhetorical strategies, each specifically responding to a particular exigence and each tailored to the audience, expectations, and genre for that audience. Every rhetorical situation carries its own set of constraints; in this portfolio I have strategically paired different types of writing with different audiences. The subject of all these different approaches is predominantly free speech issues on liberal arts campuses—the blog posts are the only exception, but I have learned about the relationship between genre and audience though them. I have explored what genre is through blogs, tried out several different genres for different rhetorical situations through projects, and matched genres to specific audiences in my essays.
In my final project I experimented with different genres and defined what genre means when considering rhetorical strategies. Writing a multi-genre essay inherently means assembling different types of information together to create a cohesive whole that reaches a specific audience. I wrote my essay to be accessible, and true, examples of the ways activism on campus ironically produces widespread student apathy. An academic article, for example, adds reputable authority to my claim that student activism is ineffective and therefore unproductive at inspiring apathetic youth to take interest. Pictures of a protest, however, let the reader experience the noise and colors of free speech that UW students daily wade through. Though both genres are simple enough to be understood quickly, they approach the same audience with different motives: the article draws a logical connection between over stimulation and desensitization, whereas the pictures provide a frame for the reader to understand the emotional discrepancy between activist students and passive bystanders.
In my RP3 project, I wrote with a formal voice to a specific audience: readers of an academic journal. Everything changes from my lexicon, to statistics, to examples and anecdotes, and length because of the change in audience. Rather than writing to a general, averagely educated audience, I wrote to a highly educated audience in a scholarly environment. The constraints of this audience include assumptions that this audience will readily understand complex ideas, will not need to be told through stories or pictures, and will have a longer attention span. Though I used real examples again, they were employed to place the issue of collegiate free speech into historical context—rather than entertain the reader. I have tailored the academic essay to reach an academic audience who is interested in more complicated ideas and deciphering national trends.
Blog posts provide an unrestricted forum in which to experiment with genre and try to define what it is (or is not). For instance, in “Genre is the Mother of all Rhetoric,” I first try to understand how an exigence elicits a particular audience, which in turn elicits a particular set of restrains to effectively write within. Understanding how audience and setting changes style is crucial: a presidential speech is may not be effective as an advertisement, a student protest may not effective as a research article. Similarly, in “The Proposal” I lay out the constraints of writing to an academic audience and explore what kinds of writing would be appropriate and successful. Likewise, “Multiple Genres” and “Carbone and Sista Tongue” are examinations of what genre is, how it works, and how to pair a genre with an audience. I felt that Sista Tongue wrote to a more specific audience than “Carbone,” but I enjoyed the variety of genres “Carbone” presented. “Sista tongue” is more strictly informational, but “Carbone” is persuasive on a personal level because of its tragic narrative.
I have learned that, to be an effective writer or a persuasive voice, you must consider who will receive your message and write for that particular audience. This means balancing pathos, ethos, and logos in a way the audience can relate to, this means using images and language the audience can easily understand, and this means writing in a voice that your audience is interested in listening to. In this portfolio, I have attempted to manipulate my rhetorical style in multiple ways, to correspond to formal and informal audiences, and employed many different strategies to communicate a message.
In my final project I experimented with different genres and defined what genre means when considering rhetorical strategies. Writing a multi-genre essay inherently means assembling different types of information together to create a cohesive whole that reaches a specific audience. I wrote my essay to be accessible, and true, examples of the ways activism on campus ironically produces widespread student apathy. An academic article, for example, adds reputable authority to my claim that student activism is ineffective and therefore unproductive at inspiring apathetic youth to take interest. Pictures of a protest, however, let the reader experience the noise and colors of free speech that UW students daily wade through. Though both genres are simple enough to be understood quickly, they approach the same audience with different motives: the article draws a logical connection between over stimulation and desensitization, whereas the pictures provide a frame for the reader to understand the emotional discrepancy between activist students and passive bystanders.
In my RP3 project, I wrote with a formal voice to a specific audience: readers of an academic journal. Everything changes from my lexicon, to statistics, to examples and anecdotes, and length because of the change in audience. Rather than writing to a general, averagely educated audience, I wrote to a highly educated audience in a scholarly environment. The constraints of this audience include assumptions that this audience will readily understand complex ideas, will not need to be told through stories or pictures, and will have a longer attention span. Though I used real examples again, they were employed to place the issue of collegiate free speech into historical context—rather than entertain the reader. I have tailored the academic essay to reach an academic audience who is interested in more complicated ideas and deciphering national trends.
Blog posts provide an unrestricted forum in which to experiment with genre and try to define what it is (or is not). For instance, in “Genre is the Mother of all Rhetoric,” I first try to understand how an exigence elicits a particular audience, which in turn elicits a particular set of restrains to effectively write within. Understanding how audience and setting changes style is crucial: a presidential speech is may not be effective as an advertisement, a student protest may not effective as a research article. Similarly, in “The Proposal” I lay out the constraints of writing to an academic audience and explore what kinds of writing would be appropriate and successful. Likewise, “Multiple Genres” and “Carbone and Sista Tongue” are examinations of what genre is, how it works, and how to pair a genre with an audience. I felt that Sista Tongue wrote to a more specific audience than “Carbone,” but I enjoyed the variety of genres “Carbone” presented. “Sista tongue” is more strictly informational, but “Carbone” is persuasive on a personal level because of its tragic narrative.
I have learned that, to be an effective writer or a persuasive voice, you must consider who will receive your message and write for that particular audience. This means balancing pathos, ethos, and logos in a way the audience can relate to, this means using images and language the audience can easily understand, and this means writing in a voice that your audience is interested in listening to. In this portfolio, I have attempted to manipulate my rhetorical style in multiple ways, to correspond to formal and informal audiences, and employed many different strategies to communicate a message.
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