Thlog #5- Don't Cramp My Style

   Though most writing assignments make me groan and sigh, PB-2B was one of those writing assignments that me me groan and sigh a little less than usual. I think I found it interesting to see not only the same ‘moves’ pop up in many of our readings, but also the manner in which they were manipulated by each individual writer. (Also it was fun trying to come up with names for all the moves I found myself.)

   Well, WP-2 is approaching much quicker than I’d like it to, and though the PBs have made me more prepared than I was before, I am still a little bit nervous. For the last WP, Zack commented that my paper could have benefited from some restructuring of the organization, so I think getting that right on my WP-2 is one of my main worries right now. I feel like there is so much that I have to address, so it is going to be challenging for me to make it all sound cohesive. But, enough worrying for now, I’m just going to try to take this process one step at a time. *happy thoughts*

   Anyways, I think (besides getting to jam out to Sublime) one of my favorite parts of class this week was coming up with a list of other verbs that we can use instead of ‘says’. I’m always struggling to find just the right word to introduce my thoughts and those of others, (“What I really wanna say, I caan't defiiinnee”), so this list will definitely help me advance my writing from ‘high-school-status’ to ‘articulate-college-student-status’.

   Another important lesson of this week’s class was the lesson on hedged language and qualified claims. I’m a psychology major, so this definitely applies to me when I’m discussing/writing up an analysis of someone’s behavior. It’s always important to not make overgeneralizing, blanket statements about someone or something unless you can back it up with evidence.

   Overall, it was a good week, and from brackets to parallelism, we learned a lot of cool lessons. Looking forward to next week!

PB-2B

       From The Rock's "People's Elbow," to Sublime's signature "sudden crescendoing raspiness," moves are seen all around us everyday. The appendix found in They Say, I Say, written by Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, Russell Durst, lists common 'moves' that can be seen in all types of writing. But, what exactly is a 'move', and what does it mean to use one in a writing context?
       Let's start with a general definition. According to Merriam-Webster, a move has multiple definitions, but the one that is most relevant to us is this: "a step taken especially to gain an objective." Though this is pretty vague, it is showing just how limitless moves can be. A move is a tool or strategy that a writer uses in order to introduce their viewpoint, persuade the reader, emphasize an idea, and much more.
       For example, Kerry Dirk displays his moves in his piece Navigating Genres. Often found in NG is the move "Explaining Quotations." The phrase "in other words" appears multiple times throughout. Dirk would introduce a quote (usually a wordy block quote) and then follow it by stating "In other words, ____ is saying that (etc., etc.)."  This is exemplified on page 254, where after including a block quote, Dirk stated, "In other words, Miller is saying that all genres matter because they shape our everyday lives." The purpose of this move is to take a quote that was maybe not the easiest to comprehend, and extract the main idea from it, which he usually condenses into one concise, and straightforward sentence. This helps the audience better understand the meaning of the quote, as well as its relevance to the author.
       The phrase "in other words" is also seen in Alex Reid's essay titled Why Blog? Searching For Writing on the Web. However, Reid is employing a different move, Adding Metacommentary, to be specific. Reid is discussing the concept of how long it would take to become a 'writing expert'. He explains that "(...) 1000 hours of writing over four years, one would reach expertise (10,000 hours) in 36 more years" (302). Though both Reid and Dirk are using the same three words, they are doing so in slightly different ways. While Dirk was trying to shed light on a quote from another writer, Reid is attempting to further clarify his own writing. He is taking a factual statement delineating how long it would take for one to become a 'writing expert', and putting it into context by explaining its relevance to his argument: "In other words, not even writing intensive courses are likely to ask students to commit the kind of time to their assigned writing that would be necessary to work towards expertise (...)" (302).
       Dirk employs another move in his work: Signaling Who is Saying What. For example, he includes the words, “Devitt argues that (...)” to not only offer a source that will substantiate his claims, but to also incorporate strong, emphatic language, creating a persuasive tone that the reader will pick up on.
       The move Introducing Standard Views is seen in Peter Elbow’s piece “Teaching Two Kinds of Thinking by Teaching Writing.” He claims that “You might also argue that intuitive thinking is better enhanced by silent musing” (59). By saying this, he is asserting that this is a view that many people share, but he goes to offer his reasons of why he disagrees with that statement: “But such attempts at nonlinguistic processing often merely postpone thinking instead of actually enriching it” (59).
    Capturing authorial action is a move that is used by many authors and seen in a variety of text. In "So What? Who Cares?", the writer introduced a quote from a source and went on to explain what it meant, as well as its significance. They point out that "By referring to these scientists, Grady implicitly acknowledges that her text is part of a larger conversation and shows who besides herself has an interest in what she says" (94). This move works because the reader feels like they're getting an insight into what the source is thinking, and thus they gain a better comprehension of what the source means.
    Aside from the already listed moves in They Say, I Say, I found some additional moves that have appeared in our class readings. Oftentimes, the writers of these academic essays take into account that their audience is mostly young college or high school students. Because of this, the writers of these pieces will try to make references to pop culture and other mainstream things that they know young people will be familiar with. I call this move the 'hip' speaker. This move is used by Laura Bolin Carroll throughout her essay Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis. She begins with a scenario about college professors, roommates dates, etc., all things that her audience can relate to, and she ties it in with the information she is presenting about writing. Later in her essay she also mentions Facebook, the president, Whole Foods as well, because she knows that her readers will be more interested (and will better understand) her points if she can write in a way that is 'cool' and relatable.
    There is something about a numbered list that makes information or suggestions more manageable for a reader to digest. The move easy as 1-2-3 is seen in Dirk’s Navigating Genres (260), as well as in Reid’s Why Blog? (308, 312). When ideas are broken down into steps, it makes it seem like a much more feasible task for the reader.
    Going off of the previous point, splitting up a piece of writing into sections is an effective way of making the whole reading process easier for the audience. Janet Boyd does this in Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking), which is broken up by concepts: I’d like to call this move give me a break, because that is the exact purpose it is serving for the reader.
    In Navigating Genres, Dirk states, " Let's consider a genre with which you are surely familiar: the thesis statement. Stop for a moment and consider what this means to you" (256). I call this move the brief intermission. Plays and musicals will often include intermissions to give the audience a break, and also a chance to process what they've just watched. This move serves the same purpose, as it lets the reader take a second to themselves to start up an internal dialogue to process what they're reading.
    In Backpacks vs. Briefcases, Laura Carroll incorporates what I like to call one-sentence zingers. As the name suggests, these are usually short, one sentence phrases, that help the reader make sense of a topic. Take this quote that she included from rhetorician Kenneth Burke: “wherever there is persuasion, there is rhetoric. And wherever there is ‘meaning’ there is ‘persuasion’” (47). The way this sentence is structured makes it almost sound like a classic saying; it’s explaining a concept to the reader in a way that is simple, concise, and memorable

Thlog #4- Movin' On Up

Well, the verdicts are in on WP-1. As soon as Zack warned us that he was gonna be a “tough” grader on this assignment, you could almost detect the collective increase of fear-sweat of every person in the room. Although he was indeed tough, I felt his comments were also fair, and more importantly, valuable in terms of helping me improve my writing. As I had mentioned in my previous thlog, I had really struggled with my thesis, but now I feel like I have a better grasp of what it needs sound like. Moving on, the most interesting activity of the week for me was the group murder activity we did in class (now that I’m thinking about it, this would sound really odd to someone who had no context). My group and I had to basically put ourselves in the shoes of the person we were supposed to be writing as-- in our case, we were tenants who used the parking garage where the murder of poor Mark Smith occurred-- and figure out what that person would be thinking/feeling in that situation, as well as what audience we were writing to. This was pretty helpful for our understanding of how we use rhetoric differently depending on the audience, genre, and circumstance. The next big thing we talked about this week was “moves.” When Zack first introduced this subject, I immediately got the mental image of a guy doing the classic ‘yawn-and-stretch’ move to get his arm around a girl. I really liked the activity where everyone had to find an online article that involved the word “Move(s)” in the title. It was cool seeing the plethora of things people found, I thought it was really a testament to the variability of a move, and how pretty much anything can be a move. 

 Anyways, I wanted to put a cool song here with the word “moves” in it but I was having difficulty finding one that wasn’t basic (*cough* “Moves Like Jagger”), so here is a short little tune by a cool guy named Mississippi Fred McDowell, hope you like it.

 

PB-2A

At first, the title “A Methodology for the Confusing Unification of Byzantine Fault Tolerance and Sensor Networks” sounds like a paper that you would not want to go near with a ten-foot-pole-- confusing indeed. The title makes it seem like the paper discusses a very complex and over-your-head topic, however, upon further examination, you will find that this paper consists of only one thing: absolute gibberish. Yet, how is this ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ able to fool you into believing it is a legitimate, academic work? The answer lies in the fact that it actually encompasses several of the same conventions and details that a true scholarly piece would contain.

For sake of comparison, let us look at a genuine academic piece titled “Neuroscience of Internet Pornography Addiction: A Review and Update.” The most obvious similarity between this article and the nonsense SCIgen-generated one is the physical structure. The font used is clear and easy to read. The titles of both papers are centered at the top of the page, followed by the names of the authors, and both are broken up into sections separated by bold headings: Abstract, Introduction, Method, etc. The next similarity is the tone and language used. Both articles have an objective, empirical tone, and they both incorporate formal scientific jargon that is technical and concise. Another way these pieces contrast is the fact that the authors’ voice can be detected and observed in the “Neuroscience” article, whereas the SCIgen paper obviously has no voice because it is all gibberish and it was written by a computer algorithm, not a human being. However, unlike the genuine paper, the SCIgen paper includes multiple charts and graphs to add to its guise of legitimacy. The real paper does not have all the charts and graphs that the SCIgen one has, and this is an important point because it demonstrates that a work does not need to have all the conventions of the genre to be considered a part of that genre. In addition to this, just like the actual paper, the SCIgen one employs ethos by including a list of references at the end in order to further mislead you into believing that it is authentic. Once the audience sees that there are multiple ‘academic’ sources and entities that support this paper, they are more likely to accept its validity.

Out of all these characteristics, there are specific ones that I feel are most significant. The most valuable rhetorical tool in these pieces is the language used. The SCIgen-generated work uses incredibly complex wording and vocabulary, much like an authentic work would. Because of its convoluted nature, the reader becomes confused and overwhelmed and thus does not make an effort to scrupulously analyze it. This contributes to its ability to pass off as a real academic paper. Furthermore, the persuasive language that is seen in both papers is also a key convention. The “Neuroscience” paper includes essential components like experimental findings, evidence, and analysis in order to argue their claim, but the impact of all these things is heightened by the use of persuasive language. The article is trying to prove that internet pornography addiction is comparable to substance addiction by first offering a definition of addiction in the first place. The authors of the paper go on to reason out their argument by aligning the characteristics of internet pornography addiction with the aforementioned definition. This use of logos is effective, as it is substantiating the author’s arguments and therefore further convincing the reader.

           Looking at both of these papers, it was interesting to see how each one could vary individually, but because they did share some of the same conventions, they could be considered to be part of the same genre.

Thlog #3- WP 1, More Like WP DONE.

You know that psychology experiment conducted by Ivan Pavlov? It’s the one with the dogs that are conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, because they learned to associate food with that sound. I am like one of Pavlov’s dogs, except instead of drooling when I hear a bell, I have been conditioned to nervously sweat when I hear someone utter “WP-1.”

 In other words, writing my WP-1 was a struggle, and looking at other people’s thlogs, it seems that others share my sentiment. Understanding the prompt was at first a bit difficult for me, but I eventually figured it out (I think???) and managed to write 4-5 pages of what I hope made sense. I never really had problems writing theses for those run-of-the-mill five paragraph essays assigned in high school, but writing a thesis for this paper was kind of hard for me; I’m not really sure if I formatted it correctly/addressed the right things. But the main thing that I wrestled with was figuring out a balance among talking about my topic, the genres, and the three sources. I kind of felt that I focused a lot on analyzing the genre, and maybe I should’ve tied in the topic more? *heavy sigh* I don’t know, I suppose it’s in the universe’s hands now. On a less dejected note, like I mentioned in my previous thlog, I am really appreciating the writing tips that Zack has been giving during class. For writing my WP-1, I thought the reverse outline and the highlighting activity were particularly useful. The reverse outline reminded me of what main ideas I am (and should be) focusing on, and the highlighting drew attention to the fact that my brain was out to lunch at one point and I had forgotten to include evidence from the readings in my analysis (which I then immediately added a reprimanding comment on my Google Doc to remind me to do so once I got home.)

Anyways, WP-2 is now on the horizon, and though my conditioned fear of the word still lingers, with the help of a few deep breaths and some positive thinking I am going to muster up every bit of writing prowess I have and face this thing head on. #SuckItPavlov

Thlog #2- PB & Genres

What I am loving most about this class so far is the FREEDOM. In the past, I have dreaded any class that involved a lot of writing. Thinking about it now, I recognize that what I actually disliked was being forced to write boring papers with boring formats about boring subjects ⎯ not the actual act of writing. Now that I actually have the opportunity to write about cool stuff that interests me, I realize that I LOVE writing. Whatta revelation…(almost a decade in the making)…

I truly had a lot of fun writing my PB-1A. It took me a little while to get started, but once I did, the words would not stop flowing ⎯ and for someone who has writer’s block more often than not, that was a fantastic feeling. PB-1B was cool too, it helped me solidify my understand about genres and their varying conventions.. Oh, side-note, I wrote a paper about Decoupling Fiber-Optic Cables from Public-Private Key Pairs in the Turing Machine, y’all should really check it out. Anyway, this week we learned about a lot of different things. One of my favorite topics we covered was the Hyphen v. Dash lesson. Honestly, this was definitely something that I feel like I should have known how to distinguish a long time ago, so I am quite glad that I am finally being educated about it now. Zack’s writing tips are also something that I really appreciated, especially the one about having a placeholder in your writing for those times when you’re stuck on a word but don’t want to lose your momentum. I have a feeling that’s going to come in handy.

Overall, I have been getting really good vibes from this class; I think Zack’s enthusiasm about writing has definitely been rubbing off on me. I’m excited to see what’s coming up next!

PB-1B

          I spent more time than I would care to admit playing around with the SCIgen, Pandyland, and Meme generators. One could squander away the hours clicking that little ‘Generate’ button, while rarely encountering the same combination twice- the possibilities are virtually endless. This truly drives home the point that having all the established conventions associated with a certain genre is not necessary, because conventions are not rules. For example, you could keep clicking the ‘Generate’ button until your finger gets sore, and though each one that pops up will be different from the last, they will all fall under the umbrella of the same genre.

          The first generator we will be looking at is SCI-gen, which is an Automatic Computer Science Paper Generator. It claims to use handwritten “context-free grammar”, which completely rings true once you read one of these generated papers and see that it is total nonsense. To begin, you type in up to five authors in the fields provided, and then click ‘Generate’. Up comes a very formal, dull-looking paper titled “Decoupling Fiber-Optic Cables from Public-Private Key Pairs in the Turing Machine” written by Carina Rodrigues, Zac Efron, and Mahatma Gandhi. In regards to its conventions, this paper looks and seems like the real deal. It is broken up into different sections separated by bold headings (a feature often seen in scholarly papers), such as the ‘Methodology’, ‘Implementation’, ‘Evaluation’, and so on. Multiple meaningless graphs and charts are also included, however they are very vague, hard to read, and make no relevant reference to the text. The language is convoluted (much like a real scientific paper is sometimes capable of being) and uses many big words. The generator also throws in a plethora of unexplained acronyms, to further mask the fact that it is chock-full of B.S. Lastly, the end of the paper incorporates an extensive list of made-up references. When someone who does not know any better takes a cursory glance at this paper, it appears to be a genuine, because it follows many (but not all) of the conventions of a scientific paper.

          The next generator we will be examining is the Meme generator. Memes are usually humorous pictures accompanied by a sarcastic, ironic, or simply a comedic phrase. In regards to the text that accompanies the image, there is usually a line at the top introducing a situation or scenario, and a line at the bottom that acts as the comical, ironic part, or the “punchline” if you will. They will often include a pop culture reference to a celebrity or movie/TV scene, and a witty and relatable quote. This convention is a key reason as to why memes have pervaded the internet. The audience (usually younger people) is a generation that desperately wants to relate and connect with one another, and hear that others have the same feelings and go through the same things that they do. A good/successful meme has you saying in your head “Omg that is so true” or “Haha that has totally happened to me.”

          The Pandyland comic generator was an interesting one, albeit crude, random, and often unfunny. The comic consisted of three squares, and featured two simply drawn males named Finlay and Simon, who are always dressed in the same clothes, and pictured against the same backdrop. After clicking ‘Generate’, a combination of random panels appears depicting a conversation via speech bubbles between these two characters, and it’s really a hit or miss as to whether it is funny, or even makes sense. This comic generator does follow a few of the conventions of an actual comic. It is short, so it can hold the audience’s attention and can be read through quickly, it includes speech bubbles to display communication between characters, and it (attempts to) offer the audience humor through a mini narrative.

          The generator that I found is the Hipster Business Name generator (http://www.hipsterbusiness.name/#). This generator is mocking the so-called ‘hipster’ names that businesses as going by nowadays. These names try to be cool and trendy, but upon further examination, they’re just kind ridiculous. The website itself is just a plain white screen with an emblem of two items crossed (often anchors, swords, or rifles) with a random symbol, and below it are two unrelated words (these are usually commonplace items like ‘sink’ or ‘basil’) written in a fancy font that have been paired together in an effort to sound ‘hipster’. The conventions of this genre are meant to poke fun at the hipster subculture that flaunts the “I liked it before it was cool” attitude and desperately tries to avoid being “mainstream.”
     

Looking at these generators, it was interesting to see how each one could vary so much individually, but because they did share some of the same conventions, they could be considered to be part of the same genre. The SCIgen papers did not have to even make literate sense, but because of the format they were still considered part of the academic research paper genre, and despite how nonsense-ridden the Pandyland comics were, they still are comics, and are nevertheless also a part of that genre.

PB-1A

A specific genre that has always fascinated me is news satire. News satire has been around for centuries. It can be found in print, such as the French weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo; on television, in programs like Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart; and in more recent times, it can be found online with websites like The Onion. News satire often talks about people, politics, and other current events that are relevant to the times. I feel that the goal of news satire is to point out and criticize the hypocrisy, irony, or general ridiculousness of the everyday happenings of the world. Though it is often supposed to be “fake news”, it has actually become a very informative and educational source for many people, especially the younger generation. Why is this so? Because it is much more interesting to listen to Stephen Colbert tell you about the latest thing Congress has done in a comedic and insightful manner, than it is to watch C-SPAN. Though some may worry that so many people are getting their information from parody journalism, I actually think it is beneficial. I myself actually began watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart when I was about 12 or 13 years old. Of course I did not understand some of what he was talking about when it came to the economy and politics, but the attention-grabbing manner in which he presented definitely made me want to find out more. If it can get a young teenager to be interested in the news, then I think that is a success.

Politicians are often the butt of many a joke made by satirical news sources. Though there are of course many politicians who are genuine and do a lot of good, I think people are okay with mocking and satirizing those who are sometimes known to be shady, greedy, or make poor decisions that end up negatively impacting their constituents. Satirical news often takes a real quote from a politician (usually an absurd or foolish one) and either simply poke fun at it or analyze it in a way that will make the audience laugh.

                       

I think that two vital rhetorical elements of news satire are sarcasm and deadpan humor. Since news satire is meant to parody actual journalism, the more straight-faced one is while delivering a punchline, the funnier it is for the audience. When reading articles posted on The Onion, I have to constantly remind myself that it is fictional, because the writers write in such a way that sounds so factual, yet when you take a second look, the text is saturated with subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) humor and sarcasm.

(Photo from TheOnion.com)

In addition to this, profanity also plays an important role. Not only does it allow the audience or reader to discriminate news satire from real news, but it also gives off a sense of a lack of censorship, which many audiences are attracted to; they are enticed by the feeling that they are witnessing something raw and non-conformist. 

            To borrow from the slogan of the Ig Nobel Prizes (though not really related to news, it is also a form of satire), news satire “first makes you laugh, then it makes you think”. I feel that this genre is an important part of how society interprets and perceives culture, politics, and everyday events.

Thlog #1 - Peter Elbow's Essay Kind of Annoyed Me

In class this week, we were introduced to the concept of first and second order thinking. I feel that, right off the bat, one can characterize first-order thinking as informal thinking, and second-order thinking as formal thinking. When thinking of an example in my life where I have either used or encountered first-order thinking, I immediately recall the ⎯ oh-so-pleasantly coined ⎯ “word vomit” activities that my english teachers used to assign us in middle and high school. Essentially, the class would be given a broad topic and then a minute or two to write whatever came to our head. In a way, I interpret this as a sort of introspection; jotting down cursory thoughts can help us analyze what we ourselves think is important, where we are mentally, as well as what we think is worth writing about.

These descriptions contrast with second-order thinking, which is characterized by structure, control, and logic. Some may say that second-order thinking can stifle and impede the creative process. Peter Elbow emphasizes in his (very biased) essay the belief that second-order thinking “often brings out people’s worst thinking” (56). Though Elbow brought up many thought-provoking and valid ideas in his piece, the aforementioned quote is one of several points he made that I disagree with. First, though there are many people who benefit from the freedom that comes with first-order thinking, there are just as many others who thrive on the structure of second-order thinking- I myself am one of those people. It may sound strange, but the freedom of first-order thinking overwhelms me. I feel like I need the direction and structure of second-order thinking to reign in my scattered thoughts. There are times of course when I find first-order thinking extremely helpful and liberating, but for someone like me whose brain is already disorganized, that kind of unencumbered, limitless thinking does not really help my writing process. (Sidenote: You’re not alone, the amount of times I repeated the word ‘thinking’ in this paragraph is making me cringe too.)

All in all, I feel like this class is my time to not only better understand what writing methods and processes work for me, but to also experiment with new ones… So maybe I’ll muster up some courage and give first-order thinking another try.