Peer Review

The peer review session that we went over genuinely helped me get a better understanding of what I needed to work on. It was similar to the type of peer review I’ve done all through high school, but allowed me to get feedback on my own idea while also allowing me to see an example of what another one looks like. Looking at another example lets me to incorporate some of the things I felt were done well in their paper. At the minimum, it was interesting to read their paper as well as have their website up while they analyzed it. This analysis gave me the chance to see what it was that they were thinking, and then see if there were similar things in the website I was reviewing.

Probably the most major issue I found in my rough draft was my organization of the paper. Another problem frequently found in it was the over assumptions that were made. Reading my paper after thoughts like this were mentioned helped me to understand my paper in a different way. I hadn’t seen the views that were described when I first read it back to myself, so this new perspective gave me the chance to fix the mistakes currently in place.

The way that we did the peer review was similar to that of the weekly conference. Both are of these are set up to improve your writing, and it’s nice to get the personal interaction of ideas. I’m willing to do anything if it is able to make me a better writer, as that is something I feel I struggle with. As I previously mentioned, getting advice from a fellow person and seeing their work as an example really benefits me.

Past Experiences

Both of the categories of reading and writing have never really been of my taste. The skills in mathematical senses come more naturally to me, so it has always been easier for me to jump along with that bandwagon. In my head, I’ve never had the greatest of skills in conceptual reading. I have always read in a style similar to having a conversation with the book. The book, or whatever material I’m reading from, either tells me stories in which I can enjoy, or it gives me the facts that I am looking for. My head tries to grab as much information from the text, and see if applications with that knowledge can be used elsewhere, similar to the way that math is taught.

It was my third grade teacher, Mrs. Bernhart, that I feel started me off in this direction. The school system that I went to used Accelerated Reading (AR) tests. This was done using a Scholastic website in which we all had accounts to. Most books were already programmed into the website. Each one had a listed reading level and was worth a set amount of points. It was always the students responsibilities to get all of the points that they needed by the end of the nine weeks.

Mrs. Bernhart never really emphasized reading much, but rather set most days aside for math related teachings and games. One of the student’s mom worked in the library at the elementary school, so she would occasionally come to the classroom to help out. Mrs. Bernhart generally had her take a student at a time out into the hallway and practice their multiplication skills. I was always one of the more skilled ones, as my time out in the hall always seemed to be a lot shorter than the rest of my classmates. After everyone had a chance to practice, Mrs. Bernhart would either play a game of around the world, where it was a one on one answer the problem quickest, and the winner would then move on to the next desk situated around the room, or hand out a quiz over it. My personality to come out on top was always released in the game, and a desire to show my mathematical dominance was there in the quiz to finish well before the others.

The very little amount of reading that went on that year didn’t get me interested in the subject. The AR tests became more of a stressor than anything else, as the more developed reading level students had to gain more points. It wasn’t difficult to get the highest reading level assessment, but I wasn’t always sure it was accurately portrayed. I decided to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer Stone, as this would surely put me over my designated goal. I read the book, and understood the overall storyline of Harry finding out he is a wizard and that ordeal. My issue was that the AR test didn’t ask questions over the general story, but rather details about the minor scenes. To say the least, I failed the test miserably. The skills that I used in math didn’t transfer over to the world of reading and writing. Looking back, Mrs. Bernhart definitely gave me the push that started me in world of math, but may have slowed down my development of English skills.

Looking at a Grant

I reviewed the grant that was proposed from Community Preparatory School to William Bingham Foundation about funds for scholarships. The Community Preparatory School is an elementary school in Providence, Rhode Island, that has a mission to prepare their students for “college preparatory high school programs” (1).  The request made in this grant proposal is for $25,000 from the William Bingham Foundation for two and a half scholarship for the school. Each student’s tuition costs $10,300, and tuition covers only a measly 14% of the schools budget. The remaining budget costs are generated through donations and grants such as this one.

The grant was not what I was expecting when I was reading it. Most of this grant is designated toward the history and curriculum of the elementary school, which they used as their project rationale. Their rationale wasn’t in a form that I expected. I thought that they might have more statistical data about the success rate of the school’s alumni, which would demonstrate the success of the students. The budget was also a part of the grant that I was surprised by. Their budget was a graphically shown, and included their total budget and donors. It surprised me because of the number of donors the school had and the amount that many of the donors were listed for, as they had 45 members that donated $8,000 or more. With that being said, the overall setup for the grant was the way I imagined it would look like. They had certain headings for each individual section and which allowed the grant to flow. Each individual section was clearly labeled so it was easy to follow and understand what would be the point of the paragraphs.

For the most part, this grant proposal follows the proposal we are writing. It includes a summary/rationale that explains the background of the school. The rationale explains the previous experience of the school with students and uses this as why scholarship money would help better the community of tomorrow. The proposal also lists the budget and participant biographies. There are some slight differences in the proposals, however, as the schools grant proposal lacks a title page and table of contents and timeline. The rationale is also different in the research they used. The school used the history of the school as its own research, where the rationale with our proposal will rely a lot more on reasons why the site is necessary and how it fills a missing gap in the internet.

Originality?

In Jonathan Lethem’s piece “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism”, Lethem thoroughly details how nothing is original, but is actually built upon the ideas already created by somebody else. I have to agree with what he says. Everything that is thought of as an original idea is only created because of how our history with similar stories and experiences lead us. Lethem says that these understandings of stories and how we change them may be done consciously or unconsciously. This is seen when Lethem tried to use a quote, but was lead between multiple sources to find the location of the initial phrase, if it truly was. He was lead “from a movie to a book to a play to a website and back to a book” (2). There is no way to say for sure this quote from the initial book was original, as the author most likely was referenced to the source from something in his surroundings.

This same type of process can be seen in a multitude of different types of information. According to Lethem, Disney has stolen the ideas from a vast majority of others. Almost all of their works are thought of in this way. The system that is currently in place for this method is corrupt. For example, although Disney may have gotten all of these stories through the plagiarism of others, they threat “legal action” against any artist that tries to use “Disney characters in a sculpture” or “using any Disney-related images” (7). This prohibits any artists from trying to do something even relatively similar. Stories, sculptures, and artwork are just some types of information in which Disney feels that someone could plagiarize, so they set up their strict copyrights to counteract this, despite the irony in the action.

Both the idea of the quote getting bounced around and the stories that are copyrighted by Disney came from some sort of plagiarism. Anything ever made has had an influence of some sort to the artist. Nothing created is original, but instead a remix of something else. Although many of the characters or the words might be altered a tad, the overall message from the artwork would be the same. Lethem explains this through a country music reference. Kembrew McLeod came up with the idea that almost all of the songs from country music were the same. He “noticed that six country songs shared exactly the same vocal melody” (11). This resemblance in the music showed  how other artists’ music depends on each other and the ability to use the same melody. Obviously there will be some key differences in the lyrics of the songs, but overall the songs are identical in their actual sound. All things are plagiarized, but that’s how we develop and create better things. The corrupt system that is going on like that of Disney only impairs this plagiarism, as copyrights only last so long. Once the impairment is over, however, we will be able to continue to develop better stories that are created off the ones that we already know.

Research

Research is a topic that I really haven’t explored before. Of course we had the occasional research paper in high school, but it never went as deep as what is described in the textbook. CDA refers to a seven step process that involves research in different levels, all relating to a specific topic and subtopic. The only research that I can say that I did refers to a very general search for information through search engines like google. Basic answers from these popular sites were all that we needed to count as research for the paper.

The benefits far outweigh the downsides to using the steps listed in CDA. For example, step three and four involve generating questions from the basic research and then researching again by using those questions to guide your more specific research. The benefits that come with the method in the book include more specific research and a variety of different viewpoints that will help further the argument at hand. The only downside to using this system is the time and effort that would be included with it. This method takes a great deal of more time, but this is counteracted with how the quality of the research compared to just the general research that I have used before.

Research is a tedious task, and that is why some think that researching is the hardest part of any project. Researching takes a lot of time to do well. For good research to be done, the researcher needs to be motivated to do it. CDA mentions that the researcher needs to have some excitement towards the topic at hand. Selecting a topic and getting a general understanding of the topic is the easiest part of research. All of the further research is difficult as you try to uncover some of the hidden arguments regarding your topic. They require a lot of time to dig up, but can really help validate an argument.

Rhetorical Reflection

The rhetorical analysis of NHL was difficult because of my lack of knowledge in resources to use. I essentially only used the sites design along with the very basic example of a rhetorical analysis of a website in the CDA textbook. This lack of resources resulted in a lower quality of analysis than what I would have liked to have produce. It’s difficult to produce a good paper without much knowledge about the type of writing that was asked for in this assignment.

Of course both the use of the CDA textbook and the visual design of the website can lead to certain assumptions of how the design was set up for the website.The textbook was used to understand the audience and the purpose, as well as some of the basic devices that the website could be using, such as text font size. Using the book and looking at the website helped to locate some of the main purposes to which the website was hoping to get across. The process of peer review and the one on one conference session probably was the most valuable resource when it came to getting the paper to start to come together. It allowed me to see another viewpoint on how to potentially write the essay, and helped clear up some of the problems that lied within the rough draft.

That being said, it would have been nice to read another full example of this type of genre and review it before writing the inital rough draft. This genre is difficult to write about when you aren’t fully sure about what material needs to be covered. Also, knowing about the information that is in the Purdue OWL would have been useful. Even just the overall setup to how it is supposed to be written would help in the writing process of the essay.

Unrhetorically Sound

To say the very least, pennyjuice.com is a rhetorical nightmare. The webpage in general does a lackluster job at creating any sense for their viewers. Their entire purpose of the site is to try and encourage the visitor to become a client of theirs. Although this message is apparent, the design of their site shuns away any audience members from even giving the product a chance. There is a wide array of colors meant to really pop out. This gives the impression that the intended audience would be children or parents of them. They attempt to use ethos with the seal of theirs located in the upper right hand corner, but it contrasts so much with the rest of the page that it makes no sense at all.

This site generates a numerous amount of design flaws, none greater than the color scheme presented. Each post that was entered is another color from the rainbow and works its way down the page. There is a small problem with set up of it, but the main issue is that the colors side by side don’t contrast with one another. The designers chose a rainbow color scheme that set up the yellows alongside the orange and light green. It creates a lot of difficulty picking out any particular selection from the list. Another major concern is that many visitors may not know what penny juice is. There is no bold link at the top that distinguishes between pages of information, but visitors must scroll down and search for a small blue font against a green background for the words “What is Penny Juice?” Rhetorically speaking, this page also uses no logos any where in there page. All of the information listed in the site relies on comments made from other customers and claims with no evidence to validate their argument. This site refuses to use the rhetorical triangle, really on using pathos.

With the colors being exaggerated greatly, and the fact there is no way to easily navigate through the site, many potential audience members may leave the site before entering it. As I already mentioned, the color scheme and the lack of navigational links make this site very unappealing to its viewers, shunning them away.

When it comes to CRAP, the site barely uses alignment to their side. The fact the colors fail to use contrast with one another immediately takes away from that subject. Repetition is only used in their continuous color scheme, but is not used with their typeface. Some of their fonts are larger, where others will use only capital letters. Alignment is decent, as all of their posts are centered within each box. With different sized comments, however, some reach the sides of the page much easier than some of the others would. Even proximity for them is a struggle. In the top left, they place a picture of a baby side by side with a seal that they try to validate themselves with. These objects have no similarities, further pushing more audience members away.

http://www.pennyjuice.com/htmlversion/whatispj.htm

Visual Rhetoric Toward Varying Audiences

Purdue Life for Parents, Friends, and Administration by Every Three Puctures Respectively

This marks the beginning of my journey

All moved in and ready for the upcoming year

Good start to the year

Anyone wanna lose?

Lol. Found me on the rock wall on yahoo images

Anyone got time for lunch?!?!?

Ready for classes, just waiting for the time to switch

Glad to say I go to the same school the first man on the moon did

Engineering fountain, Boiler Up

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