Sunday, March 27, 2016

Reflection on Project 2

This post reflects on the production and post-production weeks of project two, and the development of my podcast segment.

Successes

This week's process work went way better than anticipated. As usual, I waited until the weekend to begin the week's work, and I knew I had quite a bit of interview digging to do. While I had planned to spend hours listening to my recorded interviews, it ended up only taking an hour total to locate quotes and to incorporate them into my podcast.

Additionally, I have found throughout this project that GarageBand is super easy to use, and that the recording materials that come with a MacBook Pro are pretty bitchin' on their own. Also, I don't hate my final product which is cool.

Challenges

At one point my GarageBand app crashed towards the end of my editing process. Fortunately, it hadn't been too long since my last save, and I only needed to re-record one section of the segment. Other than that, things were smooth sailing in my editing process. I even got an early peer review to assist me in my finalizing process.

Predictions

I have come to learn that post-production weeks are usually the least stressful, so going into next week I am a little nervous. I am excited to write an essay, though, and I find the essay brainstorming and planning processes to be relatively easy.

Overall

I am feeling pretty darn good about this project overall. I think my podcast came out way better than expected initially. I think I took into consideration my audience, form, and content way more this project than I did in the last, which I think helped my overall podcast. I feel like I put more work into this project than the last and I am hoping that it will all pay off.


Editorial Report 2

This post highlights similar changes made to the genre conventions, namely the sound effects, of my podcast segment. The rough cut of my podcast can be found here, and the final can be found here.

Selection From Rough Cut

In my rough cut, at all times (0:00-4:33) there are no sounds or music heard. Fortunately for my audience, that is something I changed for my final project.

Selection From Final

Throughout the entirety of my final podcast, there is background music that brightens the mood of the segment dramatically. Additionally, this increases the complexity of the podcast, and will likely increase listener interest.

Audience Questions

The content of the podcast did not change when I added the background music, but the form changed dramatically. In incorporating background tunes into my project, I am including an important genre convention that is germane to podcast segments. Sound effects enhance the entertainment factor of a strictly-audio composition, and similarly increase the project's adherence to the preferred form regulations for this course.

Editorial Report 1

This post highlights the changes made to body section one of my rough cut. The rough cut of my project can be found here, and the final draft can be found here.

Selection From Rough Cut

In my rough cut from 0:46-1:05, there is an introduction to an interview clip, followed by no interview clip. This was intentional, but completely out of genre conventions.

Selection From Final

In my final submission, linked above, from 0:46-1:38 there is the same introduction, followed by a short clip from my interview with Ali Bramson, as promised. I added all of my citations and interview clips in this post-production week. Yay!

Audience Questions

The content changed when I added the interviews into my podcast because the interviews serve as evidence and claims in my final project. Without these clips, there would be gaps in information, and not enough explanation to prove my claims.

The form changed when I added the interview clips because I added an element that is not necessarily a convention of a podcast segment, but that is extremely prevalent in the genre. The interviews make the podcast seem more realistic and give the project more credibility overall.


Peer Review for Emily

In this blog post, I reflect on my peer review of Emily Bond. Here is a link to her open post to peer reviewers for her essay titled "Writing in my Future Career".

My Peer Review

I chose to evaluate the form of Emily's standard college essay. This meant I looked closely at the genre conventions, and the presentation of the content within those parameters. I hope that my suggestions to incorporate strong thesis statements in each paragraph, and to vary sentence structure and vocabulary use help Emily in her editing process. I hope that these suggestions will assist with more consistent audience involvement and flow of her essay.

Course Incorporation

I tried to incorporate points brought up in class in my evaluation of the essay. For example, I considered greatly the conventions of a standard college essay. These fueled my internal "rubric" for this peer review, and I referenced the thesis sentences, introduction, conclusion, and body paragraphs in my comment on her blog post.

Additionally, sentence variation is brought up in the Student's Guide, so I found it important to mention as a suggestion in terms of overall flow of the essay.

Admiration

I admire that Emily was so thorough in explaining each topic presented in her essay. Furthermore, every paragraph included multiple relevant claims, followed by extensive but not overdone explanations and evidence. All of the information, which did cover a lot of relevant and important points, was displayed neatly within the boundaries of standard college essay genre conventions.

Peer Review for Fernando

In this post, I discuss my review of Fernando Coronado's standard college essay, titled "Writing as an Engineer". Here is a link to the essay. 

My Peer Review

I chose to evaluate Fernando's essay paying special attention to content. This meant looking closely at  his responses to the questions being asked and proper citations and credibility. 

In addition to leaving a comment on the open post to peer reviewers, I left comments regarding mechanics and flow on the essay itself. Both of these I hope will help Fernando with the fine details of the editing process, and with overall flow of his essay. Additionally, I hope that the evaluation of the content helps him to incorporate important pieces of evidence into his project. 

Course Incorporation

In my feedback, I was sure to include issues and important points brought up in class. For example, the importance of references and citations, for example the utilization of the interviews, has been brought up in class many times. Subsequently, we have talked a lot about the conventions of a standard college essay, so I was sure to highlight those in my comment as well.

Admiration

I admire Fernando's analysis of the two separate genres. He first explains them separately, and then compares them to close the essay and connect the commonalities in engineers' writings. Additionally, he closely examines and presents the rhetorical strategies necessary and prevalent in engineering related genres.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Open Post to Peer Reviewers

This post is directed to my peer reviewers, and reflects upon production week and the rough cut of my podcast for project 2. Here is my rough cut.

Key Information

Basically, I have yet to add in the clips from my interviews to my podcast. I plan to do this during spring break and over post-production week. I have also yet to select an introductory sound effect or music clip for my introduction. I am aware that not all genre conventions will be met until these are inserted.

Weaknesses

In addition to the missing interview clips and sound effects, I am concerned with the tone of voice I use throughout the podcast. I am aware that I change my voice relatively infrequently. Does this take away from some interesting aspect of the podcast? When would a shift in tone improve the quality of my podcast? How important is this to my project overall?

Strengths

I have considered the strengths in my podcast to be the organization of information, and the overall analysis of the topic. I believe that I answer the question of how authors in science-based fields interact with rhetorical strategies and situations when composing texts.

Is my organization effective? Are my points of analysis relevant and clearly presented? In terms of analysis of strategies, do I cover all of my bases? Should I include more of an analysis of rhetorical situation/context as well as rhetorical strategies?


Reflection on Project 2 Podcast Production

This post reflects upon this week's production of my podcast for project two's rhetorical analysis.

Successes

As previously mentioned in my production reports, writing a script for the podcast was one of the better decisions I have made. The script allowed me to focus less on organization and word order and more on portraying my voice as an author in my podcast.

Challenges

This week I was challenged by synthesizing all of the information presented to me in my interviews and coming up with a few relevant clips. I was not expecting the selection of information from the interviews to require so much thought and time.

Additionally, dealing with a limited amount of genre examples made it difficult to include three to represent in my project.

Predictions

Based on this week, I feel that next week will be relatively smooth sailing. The only foreseeable roadblock is the addition of interview excerpts in my project. Luckily, I have begun to revisit the interviews and I simply need to fine tune and edit the clips before insertion. Other than that, I do not see any complications or commitments that require my attention in order to complete the project.

Overall

Overall, I feel like this project was easier to compile than project 1. I believe that this is because the interviews provided me with nearly 100% of the information I required to provide an in depth analysis of genres present in fields of science.

Additionally, I feel as though my interpretation and synthesis of this podcast better follow the project requirements than did my QRG for project 1. Because of that, I feel better overall about this project.

Production Report 2

The following explores the evolution of my opening section from the content outline to the rough cut of my podcast segment.

Audience Questions

To present the content detailed in the opening section of the outline, I utilized the introduction section of a podcast segment to introduce myself, the theme of the project and to engage audience interest. The conventions of a podcast segment, namely the solely audio aspect, allow me to use music and sounds to keep the audience entertained.

The production of this material was greatly aided by the content outline and the script I wrote. Unfortunately, I still need to add sound effects to my rough cut. I have decided to make this a part of post production week and take advantage of the time allowed by Spring Break.

During the production process, I realized how time consuming creating a podcast with sound effects and interviews can be, and how helpful the use of written scripts is in recording lengthy audio clips.

Outline Item

The following has been copied and pasted directly from the introduction section of my content outline.

a.     Sound affect/theme song to engage listeners
i. create and utilize a catchy name for the podcast 
b.     Introduce myself and “guest speakers”
i.      use appropriate titles and introduce fields of study
c.      give thesis of project
d.     subject matters because it is relevant to many college students, namely those in science-based fields, gives the appropriate audience an idea of what to expect in the future in terms of writing and being aware of rhetorical situations and strategies

Adaptation of Outline Item

The following has been copied and pasted from my written script. Audio for this section can be heard from 0 seconds to 23 seconds in the rough cut of my podcast segment.

Welcome to A-OK Afternoons with Avalon, your favorite podcast for every A-OK afternoon. In this episode, I will be conducting a rhetorical analysis on the writings and efforts of professionals in science-based fields.
Assisting me in explaining the rhetorical situations and strategies are Dr. Jerzy Rozenblit, a Professor of Surgery and Electrical and Computer Engineering and a University Distinguished Professor at the University of Arizona, and UofA graduate student and planetary scientist Ali Bramson.
Anyone interested in getting a career in science, listen up! Scientific articles, presentations and emails to coworkers, employers and even friends and family are extremely common, and are likely to appear in most science-based fields. This episode serves to clear up questions regarding the rhetoric prevalent in the science world.

Production Report 1

This post examines my production of project 2 by observing content from my outline and its translation into my rough podcast segment.

Audience Questions

I used form to present the information for my podcast by utilizing the interviews as part of my project, and by synthesizing all of the information I gathered and arranging it into sections ordered by levels of importance and depth into the topic.

Because a podcast is entirely audio, I was able to include the interviews themselves in my project. If my chosen genre's conventions did not include audio representations, my draft would look significantly different.

In terms of production, I found that the content outline helped the process tremendously. Additionally, I found that creating a script to read from worked wonders to help the flow of the podcast and to speed along the recording process.

Additionally, during production of the rough cut I rearranged the order of the sections within my project. The body section mentioned here is heard as the third and final body section in my draft.

Outline Item

The following has been copied and pasted directly from the first body section of my content outline.

a.     analyze Ali’s article to show the use of rhetoric in scientific writings 
b.     evidence 1: the use of logos (statistics, methods section, data, leaves out fluff words)
i.       proves that the audience is a science-based community
ii.     is important because it shows that authors of scientific texts are aware of the rhetorical situation surrounding their works, even if subconcioiusly
c.      evidence 2: the use of figures to illustrate the findings of the study
i.       put in the very beginning of the paper, the figures prove that the inclination of the intended audience is to want to see factual information displayed in the most convenient manner possible
ii.     important because the author is aware of the audience and the best way to engage the readers’ interest

Adaptation of Outline Item

The following was copied directly from the script of my podcast; the audio for this section can be heard from 1 minute 40 seconds to 2 minutes and 6 seconds.

Bramson’s first published article discusses the discovery of a Texas- and a California-sized sheet of ice found under the surface of Mars. The article begins with upwards of ten colorful photos and largely detailed graphs that depict the findings of the study in a visual manner.
By using figures, Bramson and her team are consciously appealing to the audience’s inclination to desire factual information to be displayed in the most convenient manner possible.
Lastly, the article exhibits Bramson’s acknowledgement of conventions necessary in scientific articles. This is seen in the article by the lack of emotion or direct attachment to the work from the authors, and the sole utilization of logical appeals within the text.
The use of information, presented neatly with statistics, data, figures, graphs, and references to similar studies and scientific findings exemplifies logos to an extent unparalleled in other genres explored.




Monday, March 7, 2016

Reflection on Pre-Production Week

This post looks back on pre-production week and answers questions regarding effectiveness and efficiency. 

Successes

One of the biggest successes I had this week was staying up to date last week so I didn't have to focus on both make up work and pre-production. This can be seen on the time stamps of week 6's blog posts. Additionally, conducting both interviews on time was a large success since I had two last minute cancels. 

Challenges

One of the biggest challenges this week was working through scheduling issues and getting last minute interviews included in my thought process. This is seen in the later timestamp on blogpost 6.8 and the difference in personas discussed in last week's posts versus in my post-interview post. 

Predictions

If all goes well with technology, I anticipate a smooth sailing production week as I have a solid outline and interviews to work with. Thankfully, the work I did this week in getting the interviews set up and conducted will greatly help me with ease of production this week.

Feelings

Overall, I am afraid that I may be underestimating the amount of time that this will take me. I am hoping that I do not have issues with actually putting the podcast together, but I am afraid that pieces that require editing usually require longer production times. I am happy that I found two helpful interview subjects, and I am anxious to be on spring break after finishing the project. 

Production Schedule

This post outlines the schedule that I plan to follow to create project 2.

Due to a busy week, and to maintain tradition, I will likely conduct the bulk of this project over the first weekend of spring break. The location for all of the work will be my dorm room desk. The resources for all parts of my podcast are Garageband, my interview recordings, and my outline.

Opening Section: Friday 3/11 ~ 4:00pm

Body #1: Friday 3/11 ~ 5:30pm

Body #2: Saturday 3/12 ~ 3:30pm

Body #2: Sunday 3/13 ~ 2:30pm

Body #3: Sunday 3/13 ~ 3:30pm

Closing Section: Sunday 3/13 ~ 5:00pm

All the preceding events will be completed before the start of the next part. The final step will be complete before midnight. I will probably take extended food breaks in between most parts.


Report on my Interview

This post highlights key concepts I gained knowledge about during my interviews.

Genre Examples

By far, the most commonly used genre in my field is the scientific article. The other two genres mentioned are the poster presentation, and emails; though neither are nearly as significant as the aforementioned.

Differences

These genres differ greatly in conventions, surrounding context, and, therefore, rhetorical strategies used. To expand, scientific articles require specific, identified sections within the text that describe the study and its findings in necessary detail. These sections are predetermined and are included in every scientific article. Additionally, the audience is typically people in a similar field conducting similar research, so the rhetorical strategies are molded to appeal to the specified audience.

In poster presentations, it is common that research is not complete and studies still have experiments to conduct and results analyzed. Because of this, the genre has less formal conventions than those of the scientific article, while the audience and rhetorical strategies remain the same.

Lastly, in emails, the conventions have a much more laid-back, yet urgent and professional tone. The audience of an email varies much more than that of either of the other two genres, so the rhetorical strategies may be adapted to appeal to differing audiences.

Challenges

Challenges that commonly present themselves in science-related fields are the raw dismissal of emotions and bias and the sole focus on the logic behind the information being presented. It can be difficult when writing an article on a study that you conducted, but not being able to tie yourself personally to the finished text.

Rewards

Both of the interviewees expressed that the biggest reward in publishing works in the science field is seeing them get published. It is an honor to be a published writer in science, as it carries an implication that the work one has conducted is not only timely and relevant, but that it provides a significant development and deeper understanding of the field in which it was published.

Location of Genres

Scientific articles are not commonly found on social media, with the exception of groundbreaking discoveries, but can be found on news websites, in scientific journals and on science-based websites. Poster presentations are not commonly found outside the conferences and fairs at which they are presented. Emails can be found within individuals' email accounts and are not commonly provided to the public.

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Content Outline

The following is an outline that details the blueprint of my podcast for project 2.

1)   Opening Section
a.     Sound affect/theme song to engage listeners
i. create and utilize a catchy name for the podcast
b.     Introduce myself and “guest speakers”
i.      use appropriate titles and introduce fields of study
c.      give thesis of project
d.     subject matters because it is relevant to many college students, namely those in science-based fields, gives the appropriate audience an idea of what to expect in the future in terms of writing and being aware of rhetorical situations and strategies
2)   Body #1
a.     analyze Ali’s and one of Jerzy’s articles to show the use of rhetoric in scientific writings
b.     evidence 1: the use of logos (statistics, methods section, data, leaves out fluff words)
i.       proves that the audience is a science-based community
ii.     is important because it shows that authors of scientific texts are aware of the rhetorical situation surrounding their works, even if subconcioiusly
c.      evidence 2: the use of figures to illustrate the findings of the study
i.       put in the very beginning of the paper, the figures prove that the inclination of the intended audience is to want to see factual information displayed in the most convenient manner possible
ii.     important because the author is aware of the audience and the best way to engage the readers’ interest
3)   Body #2
a.     utilize the interview with Ali to illustrate the rhetorical strategies of an author of a scientific article
b.     evidence 1: eliminating ethos completely as a conscious rhetorical strategy
i.       proves that author is aware of genre conventions within the field of science, that emotion and bias should be completely removed
ii.     important because it shows that rhetoric is present everywhere, and also that genres are often strict in their conventions and authors need to be aware and respect the rules within their disciplines
c.      evidence 2: using logos as a way to establish author credibility with a science-based audience
i.       proves that as authors follow rules of science, logic, and of genre conventions repeatedly, their credibility as an author increases out of respect
ii.     important because there is a community aspect to the publishing worlds of certain, largely non-competitive, specialties in which as people value respect, honesty and clarity more than most fields
4)   Body #3
a.     examine the interview with Dr. Rozenblit to understand the precision required to produce well developed articles and presentations
b.     evidence 1: understanding and writing to the level of the audience is key
i.       this proves that audience is a significant factor in making or breaking the success of a text
ii.     this is important because it forces authors in all fields to put themselves in the shoes of their audience to better present information in a manner that is clear and relevant
c.      evidence 2: it takes time to fully grasp the best techniques when authoring a text
i.       this proves that there is a significant amount to consider in terms of the appropriate forms and potencies of rhetorical strategies and rhetorical situations
ii.     this is significant because it is assumed that writing things when the topic is well understood is easy or does not require a lot of time or creativity, but in reality it is an art that requires a sufficient amount of practice and adherence to specific criteria
5)   Closing Section
a.     after analyzing all the evidence, a lot of things have been cleared up about the types of writings conducted in the fields of science
b.     to explain larger significance, for me, as well as any other aspiring scientists and doctors, it will become necessary to produce scientific texts of our own in the near future and this analysis aids in understanding fully what is being asked of us as authors
c.      additionally, awards relevance to the course itself, as a main focus is the rhetorical situations and strategies surrounding and within texts