Thlog Week8

This week is a busy week, and so will be next week and next-next week because the winter quarter is about to end but we still have a lot of stuff not done yet, such as WP3 and portfolio. Despite these upcoming tasks make me feel overwhelming, I still feel obligated to quickly review what I have learnt this week.

One key concept of our WP3, from my perspective, is transformation. To transform one genre, in WP3 scholarly paper, to some genres else is not as easy as I thought, especially when you are also required to change it for two different populations of audience. After I finished my PB3A, I realized that transformation does not simply mean reformation; it also means re-creation and invention. When I started to plan my WP3, I found that I cannot just rearrange some sentences or only replace the objective tone with an emotional one to make the original piece a new thing. To transform it is far more complicated than that. I have to create something new to meet the convention of the intended genre the article will be altered to. I have to make certain “moves” that appeal to the audience of the new genre instead of the old one. This is why I think such work is more like invention. You take materials all from the academic article you choose but you also add something new, change something inside, and reform its physical appearance. When I attempted to transform one genre to another, I just felt as if I was writing a new one.

In addition, the process of transforming, I think, is related to the cartoon we were assigned to read this week, “writing identity”. When you transform a genre, oftentimes, you, as a writer, take a new identity because your intended audience is changed as well. Putting on someone’s costume and thinking in the same way as he does, I guess, will cause us to make same “moves” a real writer will do. Therefore, thinking about “writing identity” may help us make a better transformation. 

PB3A

The main argument of my article, “Big Rubrics and Weird Genres”, is that generic rubrics for writing and public speaking are unproductive and theoretically misguided and therefore they should be abandoned. In section “contextual dependencies in evaluation”, to prove this point, authors surveyed different departments in two universities and illustrated that, even for a same genre, different features of student’s paper are expected by instructors in different disciplines and therefore using a generic rubrics cannot provide a reflective assessment. During this process, authors recorded faculty members’ opinions about their writing expectations in WEC (Writing-Enriched Curriculum program) meetings in different departments to demonstrate that writing standards vary among different fields. Especially, authors provided many writing criteria from the Political Science Department in order to compare with other departments. I think this part can be transformed into a discussion/meeting agenda for students about how to write a research paper. The goal of this transformation is to reflect the argument that a good rubric should discipline-based. To accomplish this goal, I have two different plans:1) write two agendas for students of two different classes, political science and physics. By comparing two agendas, the audience can notice that even for an exactly same genre, the requirement and assessment vary among different fields. 2)I can combine two agendas into a bigger one concerning how to write a good research paper in general. In this bigger agenda, the purpose is to inform students that the benchmark for a good research paper differs in different disciplines. The latter plan can more directly embody the author's idea but the former one is easier to carry out and therefore more likely to be persuasive. 

             I think the transformation into an discussion agenda is an idea closely related to the topic of this scholarly piece and this section, “contextual dependencies in evaluation” , because it illustrates that a specific discipline may require students to perform analysis from specific aspects or by specific analytic tools.

            For older audience, I plan to write an instructional article, like those we can read on internet or magazines:” How to Lose Weight Fast” or “10 Things You Should Never Do When You’re Angry”. In section “design critiques as a ‘weird’ oral genre”, authors analyzed the design rubric used to evaluate a presentation, which demonstrated a landscape architecture design, conducted by a student called Bethany. In the article, authors thoroughly interpreted each key criterion in the design critique form, mentioned Bethany’s grade and explained the reason in terms of the presentation's content and her behaviors. I think this part can be transformed into an instructional article addressing how to present your design. Since authors have clearly stated each important element contributing to a good presentation, I just need to change tone and wording to make its style similar to an instructional article, such as using “you” to refer to the audience. Also, authors described many Bethany’s behaviors that caused her to achieve a poor grade and some elements her presentation lacked. I can make use of these information to transform them into multiple tips, “things that you should never do in your presentation”, which are very magazine-y.
               From my perspective, an instructional article is a suitable genre that can effectively bear the original information of this part of article. Also, by teaching people what they should be careful about during a presentation, such as responses to the audience, visuals or the argument, it reflects the main idea of the author in this section that the pedagogy of public speaking is much more complicated than teaching students to achieve some simplified goals(such as to inform or to persuade);it should be discipline-based.  

Thlog week 7

Once again, we had a very happy one-writing-class week (only because we can spend more time on WP2). Although the time of our class is halved, the amount of work awaiting us there is not (what we have done is only WP2 draft). During the only class this week, we still had some fun activities and the useful peer review workshop, which really helped me revise and improve my WP2. So, as usual, according to my own experience, let’s talk about them.

The mind map is very interesting. I remember I went over this concept in my World Music class last year, so I know to draw the idea out of our mind is a very useful approach to assist our writing. However, sometimes, I would rather to write an outline than to draw a mind map. I think, outline and mind map, to some extent, are equivalent to each other. They both do the same thing, so choosing which one is totally up to people’s preference. I am not good at drawing, so sketching an outline before starting to write seems to be a more viable plan for me.

Socrative. Com is a great website, and so is the comparing opening sentence activity. I have to admit that I was happy to see that some anonymous classmates liked mine (despite it was not one of the most favorite ones). By discussing the top two opening sentences, I found that using a question is a good strategy to grab the audience’s attention. Also, I found a common feature between these two articles was that they both attempted to resonate with the audience. Through interacting with the audience by questioning or using second personal language, they became more persuasive.

At last, I very appreciated peer review workshop. So helpful that I do not need to find where to start the revision by myself. My group member gave me the message. After all, a reader is more qualified than the author himself to evaluate the work. Through their eyes, I saw flaws of my paper, which would be very likely to be ignored by myself. WP2 is due next Monday, so good luck everyone. 

Thlog week 6

Since WP2 draft is on the horizon, during this week, we learnt very hard to prepare ourselves for this upcoming new challenge. We went over various topics and had very fun activities. Among them, I found three ones very helpful to me.

The first one is “replacing says”. Oftentimes, I was struggling with finding another word substituting word says. I realized that the lack of diversity of word choice will negatively affect the quality of my writing and undermine the interest of the reader to read. If I always use word says or argues to introduce a quote, it will definitely cause the reader to doubt my intelligence and therefore damage the rhetoric of my writing. But fortunately, thanks to this activity, I have learnt a great number of words that can express the same meaning of say.

“Using brackets” permanently answers a long standing question in my mind—why people use brackets in a quote?  I learnt that brackets can be used in a quotation to modify words and add context. I think to properly and actively use brackets in our quotes can improve the efficiency of using resources. In WP2, we are going to quote many things, and using brackets to adjust a quote will definitely contribute to a stronger argument and analysis.

Last but not the least, I love to review Sandy’s paper. She wrote a strong WP2 paper and reading it gave me many clues about how to write my own WP2. Reviewing her paper was a very good practice on analyzing moves and style. Upon spotting her moves, I started to think why she chose it and its effect. By this contemplation, I had a better understanding on what is a move and found that authorial moves are related to conventions. Analyzing the relationship between conventions and moves sounds very interesting. Also, her article shows some flaws that we might have in our own piece as well, such as lack of direct textual evidence. It is good to notice these problems ahead so that we can avoid them in our WP2s.

PB2B

Academic writing is not only a process of critical thinking but also a process of making different moves. After revisiting articles we have read so far and re-reading them like a writer, we can find many moves the author make on purpose. In the following, we will discuss why the author may have chosen these moves and their effectiveness.

·        Introducing Quotations: “Lloyd Bitzer wrote the following:..”(Dirk 19)/”Devitt argues that…”(Dirk 21)

Using quotations is a very common strategy to support the author’s own argument. The reason is very obvious. The author wants to increase the credibility of his own piece by borrowing similar opinions from other reputable scholars. Also, articles only containing words from the author are subject to bias, whereas articles having a powerful use of a variety of quotations seem objective and plausible. Therefore, using quotation is a very effective way to establish the reliability of article.

·        Signaling Who Is Saying What: “Anne Freadman, a specialist in genre theory, points out that …”(Dirk 19)/”Perhaps the shift started when the rhetorician Lloyd Bitzer wrote the following:..”(Dirk 19)

Similarly, the author intentionally mentioning who is the owner of words he quotes is meant to increase the reliability of the quotation itself. If Anne Freadman were a physicist and Lloyd Bitzer were only a middle school student, do their quotation still seem powerful? The answer is definitely “No!” because physicist and middle school student are not even related to topic of genre and their words about genre are not consultable. Therefore, pointing out who is saying what is very critical when we using a quotation.

·        Explaining Quotations:” In other words, Bitzer is saying that…”(Dirk 20)

Paraphrasing the quotation is a process of establishing the connection and transition between your quotations and your argument. Quotations are not isolated. It has its own function under a certain context—supporting an opinion, introducing a new one and etc. When we come back from the quotation, paraphrasing it can help the article smoothly transit from the stage of listing evidences to the stage of analysis. In this course, author also answers the question why this quotation support his idea, connecting the resource back the article.  Moreover, since readers may skip the quotation, explaining quotations makes sure that they don’t get lost.

·        Introducing What “They Say”:” When pressed, for instance, most academics will tell you that..” (Graff 92)

This move introduces an idea which will be contradicted by author in the following article. I think such move can emphasis the importance of author’s point of view. By proving that what people commonly do/think is wrong, author successfully grabs the attention of his reader and convinces them that they should read through this article because they might be one of the people who are doing/thinking wrong.  This move is very effective when we are attempting to refute a standard (but may be incorrect) view.

            

·        Agreeing and Disagreeing Simultaneously:” Though this statement is clear and easy to follow, it lacks any indication that anyone needs to hear it” (Graff 96)

Disagreement comes with agreement bringing objectivity. Denying what is wrong while acknowledging what is right indicates that author’s judgement is unbiased. Also, this move highlights the importance of author’s argument. In this case, it implies that “who cares” has the priority to be concerned over the clearness of a statement.

·        Question and Answer:” So why was I talking about country songs? I think that using such references can help you to see, in a quite concrete way, how genres function.”(Dirk 18)

Such way to write is meant to give readers a feeling that the author is having a personal conversation with you. The tone become less formal and less didactic when we pose a question then answer it because such casual way to talk usually occurs in our daily conversations. Using “Question and Answer” brings the author and his argument closer to the reader; but it should be utilized with caution because it is not appropriate in academic writing. In non-academic writing, whether or not using it is totally dependent on genre and personal preference.

·        Bullet Shooting: using bullets to make something stand out.

The author uses bullet to separate some ideas of examples from the main paragraph for the sake of clearness or highlighting. As I used in this blog, this move makes your piece seem organized and easy to follow. Also, Instead of squeezing everything together into lines and paragraphs, using bullet to make something stand out is refreshing to the reader. Highlighting what you think is important and make sure readers clearly understand your point of view is the primary goal of a communication. This move contribute to both, and hence it is very effective.

·        Laughing First: using joke as the opening.

There are many strategies to start an article, but using joke is not an orthodox one. It depends on the topic. If we are talking about a heavy topic, such as warfare and death, trying to grab readers’ attention by using joke seems unadvisable. However, in most case, this move draws readers’ attention really quickly.

·        Question Shotgun: “All writing is conversational. So what? Who cares? Why does any of this matter? (Graff 92)

The author poses a series of questions which is essentially related to his main argument at the beginning. Leaving them unanswered is meant to encourage readers to read through the article and find the answer. These questions serve as the backbone/rope because as the article unfolds, these questions get answered one by one until the end, which is just like a backbone/rope connects each paragraph into a whole.

·        Slang Sling:” If you use any kind of slang words, you, too, use jargon, but if you studied these words in a book, they are probably not very hip..” (Janet 89)

Article is conversational. Relating context, the author uses a slang, hip, here because he is addressing a topic about slang and jargon; using a slang can give readers a good example about what is a slang. Regardless of context, making good use of slangs can make an appeal to those who speak slang as well. However, for those who do not know slangs, use of them is not an effective way to communicate.

Work Cited:        

Carroll, Laura Bolin. "Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps tpward Rhetorical Analysis." WritingSpaces: Readings on Writing. Vol.1. Parlor Press, 2010. 45-58. Document.

Dirk, Kerry."Navigating Genres." WritingSpaces: Readings on Writing. Vol. 1.Parlor Press, 2010. 249-262. Document.

Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. “So What?/ Who cares?” They Say/I Say: the Moves that                       Matter in Academic Writing. New York: Norton, 2010. Pp. 92-101.

“Rhetoric.” The American Heritage Dictionary of English Language, Fourth Edition. 2003.                             Houghton Mifflin Company, n.d. Web. 24 July 2009.

Thlog week5

It just feels like in a twinkling that we are already in week 5 now. We are stepping into a new year—according to the Chinese lunar calendar, year 2016 knocks the door at midnight on 2/7—and standing right in the middle of the winter quarter. Maybe it is because we are working so hard that even forget our time is passing J. Anyway, at least it is comforting to find we learn things just as fast as time lapses. Immediately after we turned in our WP1, we jump into the next topic—moves—and WP2 this week.

Moves has many different interpretations in different context. But in writing, I have an inclination to interpret it as decisions. Deciding which word to use, deciding which people to quote, and deciding how to organize the entire article all moves authors can make. I really like the activity that everyone was asked to describe the Rock’s ultimate signature moves, the people’s elbow. By this activity, I realized that the process of recognizing a genre is very similar as describing wrestler’s moves. There is no single movement or gesture making the people’s elbow what it is. Similarly, there is no single convention forming an individual genre. The kicking of right leg, the roars to the crowds, the iron elbow crushing down on opponent’s jugular and etc., they make people recognize the people’s elbow. Likewise, it is a combination of different conventions that contributes to the formation of a certain genre.  In another word, in a certain genre, authors are more likely to make some certain moves. And it links to another topic we went over this week, reading like a writer.

To read like a write is a very efficient way to learn writing and also a very interesting concept. From my perspectives, it is just same as what we have done before, analyzing conventions of a genre, but from a personal view and on a more frequent basis. By thinking of the reason behind each move the author make, we start to question ourselves what rhetorical effect it will achieve and if we will use the same trick or strategy in our own writing. PB2B will address this topic more deeply, and I hope I could pick up some new knowledge about writing while writing PB2B.