Thlog week 5 then TU

Thlog week5!

It already week 5…time flies. Anyways, I am doing this Thlog already so I can have time to turn up during Halloween weekend. This week in class we learned a lot about structuring our papers and how to “be resourceful.” I didn’t know what parallelism means until few days ago. Parallelism helps the reader to be on track and not get lost while reading long sentences. I realized that I should be using parallelism more often because I tend to write long sentences. We also learned how to use brackets. I thought we could only use it in “[…]” this form but apparently we can use it to put our words in the bracket to help readers understand better about our—writers—message. I am planning on including parallelism and brackets in WP2 so my paper looks more interesting to read other than blocks of sentences. I like that I am learning a lot in this class. I actually try to revise my papers and make time for this! I still don’t find it interesting to write a paper or read an article but if I am asked to do so, for this class, I would (without bs-ing)!

PB2B

PB2B

Since Project Builders are supposed to help us when writing WP2, I am going to use different format than essay.

            I chose Kerry Dirk’s Navigating Genres as my choice of article. And we will be looking at 10 different rhetorical moves that Dirk used; five moves from the article “They Say, I Say” appendix and five moves from what I found and named. Rhetorical moves, in my opinion, are what writer uses their unique way of writing to make their writing stand out. Good moves can affect readers to think in a way that the writer intended to. So let’s check out some of Dirk’s writing moves.

From They say I say appendix

1.     Capturing authorial action

Ø  “Amy Devitt points out that…” Dirk uses this move to clarify the point that Amy Devitt is trying to say to the readers. This move is effective in a way that author can quote another writer’s opinion in smoother way. With this, the flow of the reading can improve because the reader can see what other writer’s opinions are along with the author’s opinion.  

2.     Introducing standard views

Ø  Dirk wrote, “By this point you might realize that…”This move would be effective if the writer wants the readers to realize something important if they were not quite realizing. The author is assuming what readers might think; making the article more interesting to read. Another way this move can be effective is it can connect with the readers. The author is not just word vomiting in the article; it is trying to connect with reader’s situation.

3.     Signaling who is saying what

Ø  Dirk wrote, “Devitt argues that…” to introduce Devitt’s(another writer) idea on genre. He is bringing other writer’s quote to bring the argument or idea to relate to his own idea. For the readers who might be confused what the writer’s message is, Dirk used this move to suggest what the writer is actually arguing about. This move introduces new idea of other writer to tell the reader who (Devitt) is saying what (that genres often have formulaic features).

4.     Adding metacommentary

Ø  Dirk wrote, “In sum, (Devitt’s opinion on genres)…” This move is effective when the writer wants to bring all the ideas together and sum it up. By summing up the ideas that the writer was quoting previously, the readers can understand better about the author’s main purpose of introducing those ideas. It is easier for readers because the author gave the sum of all the opinions that he had mentioned before.

5.     Explaining quotations

Ø  This move is almost the same as “capturing authorial action” move because it is just another way of introducing another writer’s argument in author’s own words. By re-writing the writer’s opinion, author can achieve the goal of making the readers think twice about the message—once in writer’s quote and another in author’s easy explanation. Therefore, this moves increases the reader’s ability to catch the main point of argument or idea.

Moves that I found

1.     Introductory joke

Ø  Starts the article with joke so that readers are more willing to read. Once the first sentence starts with the joke, you might want to read a little more to see how the joke connects to the topic of the article.

2.     I was in your shoes

Ø  Dirk often starts his first sentence of the paragraph with his own story, opinion, and situation. He says “When I started writing this essay, I had some ideas of…then I asked myself, should I go into this essay?” and this appeals to the readers that this article has more friendly tone than other formal articles. This move shows the readers that the author is not a genius who can write perfect piece of writing whenever they intend to. Therefore readers can read the article with idea in mind that the article isn’t so formal and boring to read.

3.     Raising expectation

Ø  This is my favorite move because author can definitely make me read the whole paragraph when they use this. This move is called raising expectation because the first sentence of the paragraph is “Here is the bad news.” After reading this first sentence, readers might want to know what the bad news is. This can affect the readers to be more engaging while reading.

4.     The anticipator

Ø  This move is literally anticipating what the readers might ask after author has written some questioning ideas. So the author asks possible questions that might come from the readers. By questioning author’s own idea and answering in depth helps the readers to get clear message of the author.

5.     Bullet points

Ø  Bullet points were used to help readers to see what are important point that author is trying to say. This visualization gives pause to boring blocks of sentences and makes the readers to see think about the points that author pointed out.

Thlog week 4

Thlog week 4

We only had reading assignments and PB2A this week so I guess I can call it an “easy week.” We learned about the writer’s “moves.” I think moves can be defined as writer’s unique technique of writing that can work as an attraction factor for readers. By saying “attraction,” I mean how writers make readers to think or get the message that the writer wanted to give. Many popular writers, singers, and dancers have their own moves. For example, in class, we went over with Michael Jackson’s dance/singing moves. He wears red leather jacket, sings in unique way, and makes other moves. By learning how to recognize the writer’s moves, I can now tell what the intention of writer’s writing is—whether it is to persuade or inform. And as a writer, I can create or use other writer’s famous moves to make my own writing stand out!

Zack told us about the article—How to Read Like a Writer, by Mike Bunn—so many times that made me read this right after I got home that day. I was not actually expecting greatness of this article since I reading is not my favorite. But after reading this, I wanted to write a piece of writing, any kind of writing, to test out Bunn’s suggestions. It was inspirational, informational, and quite interesting. So Zack, if there’s any other article that you want us to read, Zack, throw it at us!

PB2A!!

            We will be comparing and contrasting the rhetorical features and conventions within two different articles. And also discuss what aspects make scholar piece, a strong scholar piece. I chose scholar piece that reflects every college student’s struggle. The title is “Financial Stress, Self-Efficiency, and Financial Help-Seeking Behavior of College Students.” Thus, the audiences of this scholar article could be college students, people who are interested in finding out about the behavior, or fellow scholar who is also an expert in the field of studying college student’s behaviors. The purpose of this piece is to inform, educate, and allow readers to be able to identify the factors that contribute to college student’s financial help-seeking behavior. The style of this piece is very formal and informatively written with tone of “We are the experts in this field.” Some of the conventions were the bolded title of each section of the article. This helps the reader to find what they want to read easily, making the paper more effective. Towards the end of the article, it had small assessment section where readers can answer couple questions and find out how much they are stressed out on financial issues. Visual literacies like figures, data, charts, and graphs were also included. And below each f those, authors included clear data analysis of what the data represents. This scholar piece is considered as genre of scholar piece because it has hypothesis/argument of the authors, backed up with previous framework. The argument of this piece was that clients with higher financial self-efficacy may self-identify the need for help and initiate contact, while clients with lower self-efficacy may respond better to advisor-initiated contact. Clear argument backed up with data and analysis made scholar piece, a scholar piece.  

            SCIgen generator generates scientific articles that do not necessarily make sense. It generates what scientific article should look like, providing graphs, charts, and data. The audience of this article can be people who are looking for an amusement. And the purpose of this article follows along, which is to entertain people. The style of this article that’s been generated is in scientific article form, providing graphs and charts even though those do not relate to the topic at all. Compared to scholar article, genre generated from SCIgen has different audience, purpose, and style. However, some of the conventions that this genre had were similar than that of scholar piece. SCIgen article divided each section with bold title to allow readers to find what they want to read easily. It also provided visual literacies; even though those were out of context, it seemed like a scholar piece. But, there was no analysis or explanation about the topic compared to scholar piece, which had clear thesis statement.

            One of the most important point that we might want to include when writing scholar piece is our hypothesis or an argument, generated from previous framework. Scholars write scholar pieces and so these pieces should appeal to the readers that their knowledge/ideas in their field is deep enough to have potential of contributing beneficial effects to the society. Another important feature in scholar piece is self-assured tone. If a scholar piece has strong argument but the tone of the piece is giving the readers sense of “I’m not sure if I am right but I suggest the idea of…” the readers will be confused about what the main argument is or doubt scholar’s knowledge. Data/ figures/ charts/ statistics-visual literacies are also important because those back up the main hypothesis that the scholar is trying to claim as a thesis statement. Strong arguments always have strong backup analysis of data. Strong analysis backs up an argument and increase potential of an argument that can be agreed among the other experts or readers. Therefore, clear argument, tone, and strong analysis are the most important aspect of writing scholar piece.

Thought blog week 3

     Week 3 is finally over! With all the quizzes and homeworks (and coming midterms), I had the busiest week ever. I am glad that I did not give up on doing all of my work. This week, we finished Writing Project 1. Although I hate writing essays or any kind of writing, I really enjoyed writing this paper. I actually devoted my time to do so and revised it, which I never do. I am glad that I learned how to do 1^st and 2^nd order thinking while outlining my essay. And the peer review session was really helpful. My group members told me exactly which part I need to work on and it helped me a lot because I needed third person view for my paper.

     During week 3, we learned about reverse outline. I never knew it would be super-duper helpful. The highlighting activity was a huge success for me because I was able to identify what I am missing and what I need to work on. Reverse outline is when you re-outline your paper that you already wrote. Using this method, I found out that I was misunderstanding few points from the prompt. When I went back home, I revised and reorganized my paragraphs to make my paper more effective. I was personally pretty happy with my result J