April 27

            I believe the genre analysis were very helpful to us. I believe it was very helpful because we got the opportunity to see how someone in our position analyses a genre. Taking us through each process step by step was very helpful. It gave me an idea as to how to start my analysis and gave me a guideline. With Magee I was interested in the female prejudice. I was interested in this topic because I am a women and I do know that some things that I say or my ideas are over looked.  She did a good job explain this topic and doing an analysis of the genre. I will definitely refer back to her when I do my analysis.

            With Allen being in the science field mad his writing style totally different. The way that he had to establish is credibility and authority had to have a more structured tone for his field. I think that we had to read to two articles together because it shows how the genre determines how you approach the analysis. Education majors will not analysis the genre the same as a engineer major. I think the two reading gave us a diverse look on how to analysis our genre.

I think the Bawarshi reading was similar to the other readings we have been reading. I think we still had to read this reading because sometimes with genres you have to change how you will analysis depending on your major and what your interest is. The quote that stuck with me was

“Communicants and their social environments are constantly in the process of reproducing one another, in much the same way that biologic ecosystems sustain, and are sustained by their organisms.”---- This quote was important to me because communication is the most important key. Also your communication revolves around your social environments. For example I do not speak the same way when I talk to a teacher as I would my friends and that is because my teachers will not speak to me the same way they do their friends. Overall I believe this was a good reading. I really liked the readings on the genre analysis the most. 

April 25

These articles have opened my mind up to genre. When I used to think of genre I used to think of a style or the way to write. Dirk has really opened my mind up to genre with the rules of country. This has made me think of how I would write a country song if I only had the rules displayed and would it be country. According to Dirk “think of genres as tools to help people get things done.” This is so true because genre provides structure and guidance to what ever it is you may do, not only for writing but also for dance. There are differences genres of dance for example you have contemporary or you have hip hop dance. There are certain styles and rules that need to be followed within each genre that makes the genre a genre. A rhetorically sound definition has to be centered…. On the action it is used to accomplish.” Genre also provides structure for the action. Back to writing country, the genre gives rules for what entails country music. So yes after hearing the rules for the genre of country I could write a country song. I like thinking of genre as tools.

Tools is a good word to describe genre because the tools help construct the meaning that the genre is trying to achieve. Without have the proper tools to explain to you what something is or how it can be achieved, if you do not know how to achieve it you will be lost and genre gives you direction. If I had to define genre in my own words I would describe genre as guidance and structure to a style. It does not have to be a style of writing it can be any style, from style of dress to style of writing or style of dance.

April 20

John Harris has an interesting take on discourse communities. His take on discourse makes it seem as though you were forced or born into your certain discourse. For example, being in a cultural discourse. It makes me think of being in a legacy discourse. For example if you were born into that particular discourse you have the privilege of knowing that particular discourse.        

            Your legacy plays a large part in discourse communities to me. There are many discourses that you were born into that you have no control over. There are more discourses that you were born in that you have no control over than the discourse communities that you chose. For example, where you grew up is a discourse community along with your family and the family activities that your family chooses to part take in for you.

            I have realize that there are some discourse communities that I can never or will never be apart of and will not be accepted into. Since I will not be accepted I may never learn that particular discourse. I know that thee are some discourses that will accept me with open arms and others that will reject me without a second thought.

            I believe we are spending so much time on discourse communities are to understand who you are as a writer which will also help you understand who the readers are and what they want.

April 18

Wardle relates to ecologies because it deals with communication and wringing in a specific community. Wardle talks about writing in engineering. People that are in that community will be very familiar with the writing and be able to understand the discourse. The formulas and the jargon used will be familiar and they will be able to understand what is going on. That holds true for math majors. The formulas that are used are good for people that in the math discipline because they are able to understand what is going on and what is being talked about. As for me understanding the formulas and how to manipulate them would be very hard and possibly a discourse that I couldn’t join because I am not from that community. Wardle also deals with people in their workplace and how they communicate. “Joining a new workplace community is not simply a matter of learning new skills but also fielding new calls for identity construction.” A new work place becomes the way of your culture. If you do not fit in with the work place you may be fired or you may not like the culture of the workplace and quit. Either way you need to make an adjustment for yourself and in a way that it will fit for you.

There is definitely a difference between Windsor and the other article. Windsor had a more professional approach to the writing and it was more formal. The other article was more for peers and not as in depth as the other articles were. This article was easier to read. It was also directed to its peers so you can tell that it was easier to relate to. "To analyze how consultants interact with engineering and English students we recorded and transcribed four half-hour consultations." They give a mental roadmap of the direction that they are going on to make sure it is easier to follow. Windsor on the other hand had more authority and spoke in a more professional manner. You can tell there was a knowledge and authority gap between the two.

April 13

            There are various reasons why I believe we had to read the readings. The most important reason I believe we had to read the reading was to get us to understand how to write with more detail and more understanding.  It was to get us how to understand the rhetorical situation. Also to write in a way that it displays a picture. When you read our writing you can get a mental understanding of what is going on.

            Rhetoric is a large part of my major. I am a communication studies major so I study the way people speak and present their argument.” Rhetoric is what allows you to write (and speak) appropriately for a given situation, one that is determined by the expectations of your audience, implied or acknowledged, whether you are texting, writing a love letter, or bleeding a term paper.” This quote stood out to me because to me rhetoric is the art of persuasion. Your rhetorical situation will allow you to figure out what cues you need to persuade your audience. Rhetoric is not only what you say, write, it is also what you do. For example, when we were in high school and we wanted to attend a party or use the car, we would clean the house first, butter up our parents, clean our room, then we would pop the question. Hoping that are strategies would get us the answer we wanted we played on the rhetorical situation and used rhetoric for persuasion. If we wanted to get a piece of gun form a friend the rhetorical situation would have been different. The rhetoric and the rhetorical situation depend on our audience.

            I do not believe that discourses are hard to join. I believe that we are very observant people. We notice when discourse is different and we put that in our minds and we try to adapt. We know there are certain scripts for certain discourse. For example a college student wouldn’t email a professor the same way they would text a friend. We have learned that those are two different discourses and they both call for very different rules.

April 11

There were not very many passages that caught my eye or that I would agree with. The one that I did have some interest in was “Rules, in other words, can seem to make life and writing situations easier to navigate”.  I would say this because rules make constraints. When you have rules you are not free to roam and think broadly. You have to think along simply lines so they your writing will be easy to navigate. I do agree rules make easier to navigate but it doesn’t allow them to be creative. Rules make your writing seem formatted and no different from other people. I can guarantee that many resumes will follow the similar format and so will cover letters. There is no variation to make you stand out. What makes you mostly stand out on a resume is your information not how you format it because many people format them the same. I strongly believe that rules make you lack creativity.

April 4th

The reading was very interesting and sparked my thought process. The citation that was the most meaningful to me was “This consistency allows readers to become accustomed to certain conven­tions and increases readability. When a professor reviews multiple pa­pers formatted in the same way, for example, she can easily find the author’s name and class section on all of the papers (Klein & Shackelford 343).” This quote was so important to me because readability is very important. When you write something it needs to be easy to follow so people will want to read your writing.  Consistency is also very important because when things are not consistent you may not know what to expect. When you know what to expect things flow and they make more sense and increase readability. If I were to read something g and it was out of order and didn’t make sense I would not want to read it because I wouldn’t understand the concept. Understanding the concept is very important and that goes along with the wringing of the piece.

Many teachers have their own style of how they want you to write a paper and how they want you to submit a paper. For example I have a teacher that doesn’t want a title, just your name and start answering the question. I also have a teacher that they want pages to be printed double sided and double spaced. Other teachers want APA style or MLA. This allows the teacher to have consistency in what they are going to read. For example if they are reading a MLA paper and want to check your citation they could go directly to where your source was and get more information. With my teacher that only wants your name and answer the question this saves my teacher time because he doesn’t want a lot of unnecessary things on the page. This gives the teacher consistency. If a teacher asks for something specific and they can’t find it then confusion comes along. Having methods makes reading easier and it provides clarification.

            I defiantly agree with both writers. We definitely should think about design in all texts. I agree with this because all writing has a purpose and in order to reach your purpose you need to think about your text in all angles. You also need to think about who will be reading your writing and how that will affect them. Also there are certain designs that are specific for certain texts and if you do not follow the design you will not have consistency across that genre. For example if you are supposed to write a paper in APA and you use not citations or you do not cite the professor may not take your argument serious and you did not follow directions so you may still receive a bad grade.

MLA creates a style of writing. It allows for consistency and readability. This also allows the reader to find more information about the topic you wrote about and to see how other scholars felt about the argument. Not only MLA but all styles of writing provide structure for the reader.  MLA is interesting because in my major APA is prominent and MLA makes me feel as if I am wringing high school papers because that is the format that I used in high school. Because of my major I defiantly prefer APA, because I know more about the writing structure.

April 4

 There are many ways to write the same things. Some ways are more effective than others. That’s why there is creative writing which can have the one writing be written in so many different ways to appeal to many different people. Also in writing when you read some information is more important to different readers. This emphasizes that creative writing is important because a writer can elaborate on a strong point they see from the reading and another writer can elaborate on a different stronger point in their eyes. I noticed that the book showed many different ways to write the same thing and I think that was very important because not everyone reads the same. The different depictions made the chapters very interesting to see how things can be expressed in different ways.

            Learning design can be important for various reasons. There are many reasons design is important because it build creativity. Building creativity allows you to become a more effective writer and allows you to write different genres and keep people engaged. Design also allows you to describe your point of views in different ways and allows people to be more interested.

            It is also true that first impressions are everything. So design is very important in that respect. Design is important because the design can appeal to you audience and make your audience want to know more or it can make your audience very bored and uninterested. This is true with resumes. For example if 20 people apply for a job and have a  boring resume the person with the best design the employer will want to know more about them, and want to engage in a conversation with them because their resume may have told a large part about their personality.

                There were many things that stood out to me. What stood out to me the most was the issue on spacing. This stood out to me the most because when things are jammed together and do not flow they are not interesting to read. People like to have things flow and easy to read on their eyes. For example with this wring, it is double spaced so it will be easier on the reader’s eyes. I also took a MIS class and it dealt heavily with design. This class showed that when things are not properly spaced it throws the reader or the audience off-track and they get confused and not want to read it anymore.

                My major is Communication Studies and with this being my major the way you communicate is everything. So in writing you are communicating yourself and this is how you are presenting yourself. This is so important because with design you are communicating who you are also. If you have a plain design you may be a plain person or it shows you didn’t put much work or time into the project; either way it is not an effective way to present yourself. So design is very important especially in writing because it’s not only what you say but how you say it.