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The great conclusion of my ePortfolio page. :(

Good morning, afternoon, or evening whenever you are reading this Derick. I’ve been in your class for an entire semester and I can easily say that your class was my favorite by far. You are a teacher who approached teaching how to be a better writer and thinker in a unique way rather than read us a boring powerpoint like so many of my other professors. So I thank you for that. Now, enough ass kissing and on to the purpose of this assignment. Today I’ve been asked to reflect on my semester in 250

To begin with, I do feel that this class has certainly made me a better writer in two ways. Firstly, the reflective pieces and planning pieces that we had to do before and after every assignment helped me find mistakes and generate new ideas both before and after the assignment was finished. In the second way I feel the broadness of the subject you were allowed to write on helped massively. I always had the option to write about what I was passionate about and because of that, it helped me actually care about my work and thus be able to produce my best work. Planning my work was the best thing I learned. For our visual analysis, I planned the heck out of that assignment and it turned out really well. It made cohesive sense and in my instructor’s words, he really liked it and that’s awesome to hear.

At the same time, 250 did a great job pointing out my flaws in writing as well. I’d believe I’m my biggest critic and every piece of work I do I have so many things I wish I did this way or something that I messed up. While in 250 I realized that certain assignments, especially our documented essay, I didn’t know how to research effectively. Being a journalist major I should for sure work on fact checking and finding every piece of information on my subject. I say this because in my Kaepernick essay, I was covering a massive issue and it hit me hard that my research has to excellent and well covered or else I have failed to tell the truest story. It will be something I will continue to work on through carefully fact checking sources, being persistent and self observing my self.

In a broad spectrum, I realize that I am still young and still have tons to work on with my writing. My biggest weakness, and this doesn’t particularly pertain to the WOVE or even ENG but just in general, is procrastination. I often will wait to study or wait till the last minute to do certain things. Often this leads to a half assed job coming out and when my professors or parents see this work, it’s a reflection of me. Going forward, I’d really like to grow up to a man who pursues his goals endlessly and doesn’t rest. I want to be known as the guy in the newsroom with the best work and work ethic. The unfortunate side of this is that while I realize this is what I want and I know the problem, this isn’t something I can simply change overnight. Lot’s of self reflection, maturity, and discipline will come out the more I grow and experience. That I am sure of.

Another factor of my writing that I have never really considered too much was my appeal to the audience. I suppose I’ve never thought much about this was because nearly every essay I’ve written as gone to one person, usually a professor. However, when I take a step back and look at my writing, I can see that I am actually confident in my self here. I believe that when I write, I put a lot of my personality into my writing and try to write as I speak. I believe this could appeal to anyone as it isn’t a traditional style of writing. I think the biggest thing for anyone in writing is to keep that uniqueness to your writing. You should make people say, “That’s how he/she writes.” Be known for your style.

The last point I’ve been asked to consider is how this class has helped in the real world in terms of communications. For me, this is the easiest question. As humans, we need the ability to express ourselves. Some do it better than others and for me, this class has helped me mature into someone who can express themselves even better now. I’m going to reference the documented essay again because that showed me how much research it takes and understanding of both sides in order to effectively communicate the true purpose of the subject. In that regard, again, i’ve gained a great understanding in that area. Going forward, that understanding can help me grasp the subjects purpose better no matter the subject. This even ties back into my biggest goal of wanting to be the best reporter in the work room because if my pieces reflect the subjects purpose the best, that leads to good work, which leads to happy readers, happy bosses and a happy me.

 

In conclusion, I’ve really enjoyed this class a lot and was one of the very very few of my classes this year I liked. I didn’t feel like minute was wasted in here. Perhaps there is a bias because I like writing but I don’t think that should matter. I learned how to put things into a better perspective, organize and plan my work out better and of course, I had a great time with everyone in the class. Thank you again Derick, enjoy next semester and if I ever need advice on life or writing I will for sure come to you.

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Response to WatchMojo Top 10 List.

What is the criteria for the top 10 list?- Has to be a somewhat popular or cliche halloween costume that classifies as traditional.

Out of the top 10 list, what do you agree belonged? What didn’t? If they all belonged, why? In my opinion, most of the costumes were generic costumes in general. Some however, in 2017, aren’t as picked as the others. Princess should definitely be 2 or 1 as even today, little girls especially still dress up as  princesses. I don’t agree with Witch being number 1 as I never thought that it was a costume that was more cliche than Zombie or Ghost. 

Are you in agreement with the number 1? Why or why not?- Not at all. I think Witch belongs on the list, but not at number 1. In my previous question I stated that I don’t see as many witches from people than I do Zombies or Ghosts. 

What arguments did the narrator make for the number 1? Was it consistent with the criteria listed at the beginning?- They stated that the witch costume was a classic and easy fix for a quick costume last minute. They used examples of how you could use lots of makeup to make it look good and a broom. The example they used however, it was actually complex costume with tons of makeup. I don’t think that quiet consistent because for other costumes like Zombie and Mummy they provided pretty basic ways to approach the costumes but didn’t with the witch. 

Suggest a new number 1 and explain why you feel it deserves that slot.-In my opinion, Princess or Army Soldier. If we go off the gender stereotypes, then these costumes are boys and girls favorite, at least at a young age.  For like 2 years I didn’t trick or treat and instead I gave out candy and out of all the costumes I had seen, these two were the most prevalent.

Now, thinking of what the narrator said for the number 1 selection and what you just suggested, is there bias? Is the audience left with a choice?- Well the audience watches the video of someone’s opinion and they don’t have to believe this person’s opinion. In fact, I don’t even believe there is a big bias. I know nothing of the author so I don’t actually know if he prefers witches to anything else. 

 

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Planning for my Ad Project Video.

Finally a project has come my way that I can get behind. Of course I love writing but even more than that, I enjoy filming and and editing. It’s one of, if not my deepest passions in life. For this project, we’ve been asked to create an ad video and then analyze how and why we structured the video in that certain way. Since it asks, I’ll go ahead and explain first what equipment and software I’ll be using. I’ll be using a Canon G5X Powershot along with Sony Vegas Pro for editing software. I have over a year’s worth of experience with both so I should have no problems in that area. The hardest part for shooting a video or film is the idea to spur you into something. I already know I want to do an ad for my project, next would probably be picking an ad about what. We’ve been told that our ad can be about anything. So because of this, we have ton’s of creative freedom. One of the things I’d like this ad to be is funny by being over the top. Another thing that I want to do is take a couple of persuasive rhetorical strategies in order to convince the audience to buy my product. I started with looking up some of the dumbest products to ever be made. I wanted to go with a spoof comedy to try and make fun of the flaws of something. One of the things the article pointed out was how stupid paper plates were. Immediately, I thought this was a good idea. I thought how I could make fun of them by picking a lot of different types of flaws. For example, heres a few. They are a huge harm to the Earth, having actually reusable dishes that can be washed, you waste a ton of money, and I even had a funny spoof idea where i’d say something like “Why need real plates when this can happen?”

*Drops plate

*Pans up to my face and I say “Oh hotdog”

“With the Paper Plates you will never have to worry about an accident like THAT happening again.

*Drops paper plate

*Pans up to my face and I throw a thumbs up.

Another thing that I’ll have to do is use my rhetorical strategies into my ad. So one of my ideas overall is to get customers to stop buying Plates but by using reverse psychology and spitting bad facts about paper plates, this in turn should hopefully push the consumer to actually buy real plates. We also need the consumer to buy specific brand of plates so I’ll most likely have a box of plates from some company of my choice. In nearly every shot I’ll have that box in the background and occasionally I’ll say something like, I had this one idea where I do the following.

“Who needs expensive plates like these?”

*Pushes box of plates off the counter and you hear plates crash

“When you could spend $30.00 a month for paper ones!”

I suppose another rhetorical strategy could be considered would be that reverse advertising. Bad mouthing something actually turns into me almost sarcastically saying not to buy paper plates and instead turn to real ones.

 

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Responses to How It Should Have Ended YouTube Videos.

How Guardians Of The Galaxy Should Have Ended.

For my first video that I watched, I picked Guardians Of The Galaxy. I wanted to pick videos about movies that I’ve already seen so that I could understand the humor and jokes the authors made. Watching through this video, the layout of the video layout is set up in a way to make fun of plot holes and also presents jokes made out for kids ages 14 and under. I didn’t really laugh at any of the jokes but instead found humor in the plot holes being identified often times asking myself “Well they have a good point.” Overall, for a 6 minute video, I found it boring and I wouldn’t watch it again. My personal rating would be 5/10

 

How Star Wars The Force Awakens Should Have Ended

Another video that I didn’t really laugh at too much. The layout remained the same which is nice to see. They highlight the major plot holes that the movie presents and add in some 14 year old humor along with it. One thing I didn’t add on before was the art style. It’s actually amazing how well they recreate the characters for a studio which probably doesn’t have half the budget Disney has. So props to them for that one. 6/10 cause I love Star Wars.

 

How Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Should Have Ended

For my final review, I decided to pick a movie I hadn’t seen yet to see if the experience was any different. To be fair, when they made jokes about the movie, some of them I didn’t understand. But again, the plot holes being pointed out was the main driving force for the video and again, I didn’t laugh much. 5/10

 

Summary

Overall, this channel doesn’t seem like a bad channel at all. It’s obvious they put a ton of work into their videos and they are really good at sticking to their roots which is plot holes being pointed out. The graphics team does a great job drawing the characters and both music and voice acting is great. The humor isn’t for everyone and if you haven’t seen the movies, chances are you won’t understand some or all of the jokes and plot holes. Would I recommend this channel to someone? Sure. Would I watch it myself? Probably not.

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Rhetorical Analysis Reflection

The picture above reflects how I felt about my assignment. The minimum words for the assignment was 600 words and I somehow managed to write nearly 1200 words. Looking over my work, I knew I had to shorten my assignment. And after an hour and a half, I had only managed to take out 200 words. This I believe was a big flaw of my paper but not only that, my research I did led me down a difficult recovery road. Prior to doing this assignment, I had looked up what a rhetorical analysis was. This can be found in my planning page. https://eportfolios.isucomm.iastate.edu/bsmlatic/2017/09/06/planning-for-the-rhetorical-analysis-assignment/. In the planning post, I actually defined pretty much exactly what they ask me to do which is analyze the writer’s techniques and persuasive skills. However, for whatever reason I decided to forget about my planning and began writing about the article in general. I believe I summarized the article along with exploring my author’s writing techniques. This wasn’t what was needed,  and I should have just taken out the summary part or kept it very brief. A few things that I think I didn’t completely screw up was my attention to detail. Sure I wrote a lot but the things that I did write about, I made sure to fully explain my thoughts and my ideas. Going into detail can be a good thing because it provides a clear picture of what the author is really trying to do. Another thing I actually altered from my rough draft to the complete draft was I added in headers for the first time. I usually don’t put headers into my papers because we had always been taught not too, but I decided they did organize the paper really well so I added those in. One thing I’ll definitely fix in the future is my APA style. I am almost 100% sure I messed this part up but to be truthful, I don’t know how to do the style.

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Small Change Response Article

General Thoughts

My general response to this article is met with little surprise. The article’s main driving point is that social media has become a major tool for less empowered countries to speak out and let their voices be heard around the world. For me, this was already common knowledge and growing up in a boom of the internet, I suppose this isn’t new to me. For me I agree entirely with this article but one thing that the author posts that I thought was very true was that often times on twitter, facebook, and other platforms, the people tweeting aren’t even from these countries, and instead they might just be tweeting to tweet as it’s the newest craze. I think one point I’d like to make is that people’s eye might not be open to what’s actually going on, and instead are having news fed to them by these same social media platforms. Regardless, I don’t think one can argue that the explosion of social media has opened doors for these countries.

 

Analysis

I think in the article the author shows an effective use of logos to present the the argument. Throughout the entire article, the author uses pieces of evidence of events that actually occurred to showcase the certain problem that was happening and then he proceeds to show the solution that usually involved social media or the internet coming in to help. Certain examples of this could be found in the book (e)dentity by Stephanie Vie on pages 77-78. The author includes an actual story about 4 black students who sit in’s to speak out against racism. Eventually, without any sort of internet to help, nearly 78,000 students across the nation were sitting in racially abusive establishments. The author even points out that “the lack of the internet” didn’t stop this message spreading. He then continues on by providing another example in 2009 in Maldova when twitter was taken over by thousands of tweets from protestors and people who saw on twitter  speaking out against their country’s communist government. As we see in both case, the authors use of logic to explain his claim that how mass messages are sent is changing is prevalent. He shows that without the internet, mass messages still spread to a large group, but not as quick and not to as many people. He then provides an example where another protest that was spread across not just Maldova, but the entire world. It’s because the author uses logical facts and real life events that helps me, the reader, really believe that the internet and social media has actually made a big impact.

 

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Planning for the Rhetorical Analysis Assignment.

September 5th 2017

For this planning post, my assignment is to make a plan as to how I’m going to approach this assignment. To start, I would like to define what exactly I’m being asked to do. They stated “Rhetorical Analysis” is what I’m meant to do, but to be honest, I have no clue what that means, so let’s define it further. They go on to say a Rhetorical Analysis is looking at how an author fulfills or fails it’s purpose for the particular audience. Also, on the assignment sheet, they try and push me towards analyzing the persuasive strategies the author uses to convince me of seeing their point of view. Finally, I looked up the definition of Rhetorical Analysis. Paraphrased, it seems that Rhetorical Analysis is a technique that writers use by breaking down articles into parts and then explaining how the writer uses their own style of writing to entertain, inform, or something entirely different. With this being known, I think one of the best chances I have is picking a sports article that is looking to persuade the reader on something such as predicting why a team will win the championship. For this, I’ve picked a topic that I know well in terms of sports, soccer and I picked an article about Liverpool winning the English Premier League. Here is the article link. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-4753122/Can-Liverpool-win-Premier-League-superb-pre-season.html Hopefully this article will allow me to correctly analyze and get a good grade on the assignment.

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Reflection on Summary Assignment for ENG 250.

September 5th 2017

In today’s reflection, we were asked to write about our thoughts on our summary assignment and post it here on our portfolio. The article I chose was one written for the McGregor vs Mayweather boxing match. On initial thought, I thought overall I did a good job presenting the article in a fair and non biased way. Not only that, but I had a few of my peers review it as I felt it was important to get another viewpoint from another unbiased source. Firstly this was one of my very first college papers I had to write and I wasn’t scared as I was nervous. With college writing, the obvious change is it’s more serious and because of this, as a writer I learned that you have to carefully reread AND rewrite to provide the best product. Most of my writing that I enjoy to do and had to do in school wasn’t a summary of a random internet article and because of this, I did feel a little bit out of my depth. The most important part for me was making sure I actually summarized the article clearly for the reader. I enjoy talking so often summaries turn into a long read which is incorrect to do. I felt that I did a good job giving the reader exactly what the writer intended and wanted the reader to think which I feel is an important part of an summary. Making sure to give the authors meaning or purpose of writing. I also mentioned that I got a few peers to edit and look at my work. All of them had told me that my grammar or my phrasing of certain words could have been better but my content and summary of the article was flawless. It was reassuring to hear and help solidify the mentality that I did a good job. Next time I write a summary like this, I think I will use some of the steps such as rereading the article and taking notes over initial points. One of my faults as not just a writer but as a person is that I often move too fast and because of this, sometimes miss key details. However, this is college and I’m in a space that will really let me improve myself so I’m confident that over time, I will grow and hopefully this problem will go away.

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My very first ePortfolio post.

Currently looking at my ePortfolio, it looks kinda boring. It’s just a picture of a plant which is odd because I hate plants. I mean I understand their significance but still, it isn’t something I’d put on the front page where any new comer sees it. The front page has to grab attention and define you. What I hope for my ePortfolio to be is something of a trophy cabinet where as I continue on with my Journalism degree, I can add my accomplishments, recognitions and my own work. I believe that my ePortfolio will be a way for me to also blog my thoughts on current world issues, class, and my life. Finally, this ePortfolio will be, if you allow me to use an analogy for a moment. This page will be like a rusty old car at first. The work maybe won’t be the best and perhaps the car won’t look super nice. But as time goes on, as I work on this car, it’ll grow into a beautiful creation that will be reflective of my hard work and I’ll be able to look back and compare my work. I hope that because of this page I can learn to outsource myself and use this page as  a way to link employers and professors to my work. I would like them to be able to see, in the blink of an eye, see how I write, my YouTube content, my thoughts and opinions and most importantly, how I’ve grown.