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I agree that this passage is very relatable to everyone in a first year english class. The author made it very clear that she was talking to first year college students. This helped me really understand the article because I was able to relate to it so well. To be honest I thought this when I came into college. I was like I’m pre-vet: I’m not going to need to learn how to use rhetorical devices and what not. I also thought it was a waste because I had more important courses like bio and equine health. As the semester went on though, I learned that I will need to use certain types of writing in my field. All professions use writing at some point, even if it’s only a couple paragraphs compared to the ten pages we normally do in college. I am glad that we have to take first year english classes because I really think they prepare you to be a knowledgeable writer. Being a knowledgeable writer will help in any profession because it will make you sound more intelligent, and it will help you be able to analyze what other people are writing about. In my profession specifically, I will probably be writing emails, paperwork,and possible reading and writing research. I will be doing a lot of communication, so I need that strong background in writing. I think the point of this article was to help people understand that even though you think you will not be writing in your major, you probably will be and you need to know how to do it. I like how in class now we are focusing on things that are centered around our major. I think it helps the first year students get a feel of what they will be doing later in their college careers and in their professions. Overall I think this is a good article for freshman to read. I think it really helps you think how important the first year classes are, even if you think they are not.
I agree that I like the comic style readings. They are much easier to get through than other readings we have done this semester. I also agree with Rory that we need to be prepared to read thing that do not have pictures. I think we are all capable of reading non-graphic articles, but sometimes it is nice to take a break from the words and learn how to analyze the pictures as well. I really like that this specific reading gave examples and explanations of all the different biases, so we were not confused about anything. I never really knew about the different types of bias, just what bias was. I was glad that Gladstone used examples like the media and the presidential elections to show the different types of bias. Media is probably one of the best examples of bias because so many people have a say in things. I agree with Ashely when she says that most people use visual and narrative bias category. A lot of people will be drawn to something that is visually appealing to them, or if they have seen something with their own eyes. Narrative bias is also very appealing because some people are very good story tellers, and really make you believe their story is right. When you have the combination of good visual evidence and a good story, then it makes it really hard for people believe any other story, especially when they have not heard the other side of the story. I think all of the types of bias are important to know. There is a specific time and place to use the specific types of bias. I would like to learn more about the different types of bias and learn how to use them in my writing or be able to spot them in other readings. Overall, I thought this reading was very informative, even though it was not that serious. I think Gladstone did a good job reaching her appropriate audience.
I agree that this article was different than all of the other articles we have read this semester. I found the topic interesting because I am a science person, and I can relate to it. I like how the author uses the example of the scientists spending their days searching for different animals, how they get so excited over finding one. I agree that scientific writing is about curiosity. All of the scientific articles that I have read have been about experiments, and people trying to figure out something new or prove a theory. I feel like there is a lot more to say about scientific articles. This article is just speaking of scientific articles in general. It does not go in depth about the different kinds of articles like lab reports. I wish it did go a little more in depth about the different types of scientific writing to really show how it is different from other types of writing.
Overall, I thought the article was informative, but also relatable to the audience. The audience for this article was probably high school students or freshman college students. It is not a difficult read; it is just the basics of scientific writing. I think the author did a good job explaining what scientific writing is. I think everyone can relate to scientific writing because we have all made observations and have been curious about something. We also have all read or heard about scientific writing like in the news or online. It is all around us. I do agree with Morgan on how people who enjoy science would like this article more than a regular person. They could probably relate more to the examples that the author made.
I have not heard of the references she made either, but I have read enough scientific articles to know what she was talking about. Overall, I enjoyed the article. I don’t see how it relates to what we are doing in class right now. Maybe how we were observing our specific communities, but I think we are analyzing the data differently. I think scientific writing focuses on different things than our ethnographies are focusing on. I am not really sure though.
I definitely agree that this piece was well written and well illustrated. The author used appropriate language and pictures to really help me understand the topics they were discussing. I am a fan of the comic style readings because they are easier to get through then pages of words. I know a little bit about the media from English class, but I am not really a huge news fan. I normally hear about the media through a secondary source. I do think the media is an important topic though because it is the main way that people find out about what is going on in the world. I do agree with the reading when they say that people are not trusting the media as much as they did in the past. I think it is harder to trust the media when there are so many different people saying different things. As Rory was saying, I also think that the media has done good, especially covering 9/11 and the Watergate Scandal, and I do think there is a balance between the government, media, and public. The media does have a hard job of spreading the appropriate news out to the public. One little scam or mess up makes people lose trust in the media, and they have to gain it back. That is why the balance is so “delicate”.
I also agree with Brooke Gladstone that journalism attracts pesky and naggy people. I feel like you have to be that way to be a reporter because you need to get information out of people. If you keep bothering a person they will eventually tell you what you need to know. I also think this shows that the journalist is really passionate about what they do. They will do anything to get the information they need. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. Journalists just want to get the information out to the public, so they are more aware what is going on. I don’t think they should be penalized for that.
Overall I thought this article was really informative, but it did not seem that serious to me. It helped me understand an important topic that people should be aware of today. Even though I do not follow the media that much, I think it might be important to do so because we need the media for information.
Like Sarah, I had never heard of ethnogrpahic writing. After reading “Putting Ethnographic Writing in Context,” I learned much more about it. I liked how this article was easy to read and understand unlike last weeks reading. I figured out that ethnographic writing is writing that includes what a person has learned by analyzing material. I like how Sarah says that it is like “ultimate writing”. I see it as putting together everything you have learned and putting that in your writing. It is what we all strive for when we are writing. I agree that the tone is very relatable to the audience. As a college student, I can understand difficult topics, but I still like thing to be easier to understand, so I do not have to spend time trying to break down every sentence I am reading. This reading does not leave me questioning what I was reading.I think this reading is meant for college students, and I thought that the author did a good job reaching his audience. I like the comparison between the anthropologists and how the he talked about his own experiences. It really helps me understand better when I have an example. I also like how the author breaks down ethnographic writing into all the parts of writing: pre-writing, introduction, field notes, journals, and the actual drafts of the essay. I think it would be beneficial to our writing because it can help us add details our writing that we would have not thought to add before. We are able to put our point of view of stuff into our writing. I think ethnographic writing is important, and I wish we learned it in our previous english classes. As Sarah was saying, there are some consequences that you have to deal with in ethnographic writing. We are using all the information from the world around us, and sometimes some of the information should not go into the writing without consent from the people it is about. I think this might stop people from using ethnographic writing because it is more work than other types of writing. I agree with Sarah that journalists use ethnographic writing. They do research about their topics and go in depth about what they are writing about. I think that would makes their jobs fun because they get to experience so many things, so they can write about them. Overall I enjoyed this reading. I found it interesting and very informative.
I totally agree with Evonne. I think this article was pretty hard to understand. It was unlike some of the other readings we have done this semester, where they help us understand the concepts with examples. In this piece, I think there was a bunch of words thrown at us all at once, which made things overwhelming. I have heard about some of the terms in the article before, but I forgot what the meant. Once I read through it a couples times, I had understanding of the simple concepts like grammar and what Discourse was, but everything else was still pretty confusing. Before the reading, I also looked up “mush fake,” but I could not find anything as well. The only think that came up was the urban dictionary and different things from Gee.
I understand that Discourse is the way of being in the world and all of the interactions that a person has. Then he started talking about how there is two different types of Discourse: discourse and Discourse. At first I thought discourses would just be subgroups of the main topic Discourse, but that is not true because there is primary Discourse, secondary Discourse, non dominant Discourse, and Dominant Discourse. I sort of understand primary Discourse, which is how we make sense of the world, but I got lost when it came to secondary Discourse.
I think the example about the 5 year old girl wasn’t meant to be negative. Even though the story was not happy, it was just showing the readers how secondary Discourse builds up. She was learning from what her mother was doing.
This seems to be an unpopular article among the class. I think if we had an article like the comics about this particular subject, less people would be confused. I really tried to understand the definitions and concepts in the article, but I couldn’t get it. I hope we can discuss this in class more, so everyone can understand better.
I agree with Alyssa that the essay is very easy to understand. It helps us understand what genre is without using examples that we would not understand. The author used examples like music, movies, and writing, which we can relate to. This essay really helped get a firm idea of what genre is. I had an idea of it, but never fully understood the concept of it. I just thought it was how you categorize something, but is much more.
Like Alyssa was saying, genre builds off a first response. I never thought of how a genre was created; it was just there. An example Dirk used was talking about country music. For a country song to be a country song, it has certain principles it needs to follow, and we all know these principles without thinking about it. You will just know it when you hear it. Someone had to be the first person to do this, or we wouldn’t have a country music genre. I still don’t really understand how this happens, but someone creates a genre and everything builds from there.
Throughout the years, I never really thought about the genre of my own pieces of writing. We did not really discuss it in any of my previous english classes. Like Alyssa said, the teacher normally has strict rules you need to follow. Sometimes the rules are helpful and guide you through the assignment, but other times it is hard because you are not allowed to say what you want to say and make it your own. I like to be able to pick my own topic because it makes me more interested in writing, and I enjoy it more. I liked how last semester in my english class I was able to pick a topic that I was interested in. Even though I had to follow the project guidelines, I was able to feel like it was my own work, and it was different from everyone else in the class. We were all allowed to work with different genres.
I think the tone of the essay was informal but informative. The essay made me feel like I was talking to another college student instead of a professor or out of a textbook. Even though the essay was informal, it still felt like the author knew what he was talking about and backed up his thoughts using examples from other authors. He definitely made me much more informed about genre. The author also made sure he appealed to the audience throughout the whole essay by using examples college students would like.
