The End of the Semester...But Not the End

This will be my last blog entry of my second to last semester in college before I receive my undergraduate degree, but I seriously doubt it will be my last. This was my first experience keeping a blog and I can now see the potential and benefits of writing a blog. I feel that it is the same as a diary or journal that people are choosing to share with the people they want to eventually read it, whether that it a particular group of people or the general public. It is a cool tool for social networking in the age of technology that we've entered and I feel I may continue mine in the form of a sports or entertainment blog so that people can keep up with it for the views I take on certain issues. I had a good experience with this  blog by using it as a classroom journal where I reflected on certain topics we discussed in my Writing for the Professions Class. I would not be surprised if more teachers require this kind of communication so that they are teaching the medium as well as seeing if the students are keeping up in class and seeing their opinions that they didn't get to hear in class. Also, the rest of the class can keep up with each others blogs and get help from each others responses to the readings or topics discussed. All together I think the blog will be around for decades to come. Hope everyone has a great holiday.

Internet Plagarism

I have been interested over the past couple years on how "Internet plagiarism" would play itself out and what kind of decisions would be made over it. First, there were warnings to students but I personally always knew friends that ignored them and didn't care because they didn't think they would get caught. I was always too scared and also I didn't like turning in a paper that I could not recite for a teacher if asked to. The only way I figured I could plagiarize was if I read something and couldn't figure out any other way to say it that sounded like my writing. I think every writer has a certain voice and teachers who have read other things a person has written may see something and not believe it was from that person. Regardless of all the reasons, I was never a plagiarizer but many people were. Turnitin.com changed that a little as strict teachers started forcing kids to turn their papers in electronically so that a program could match it up against other papers found on the Internet. This worked for a while as everyone was scared, but I never actually heard of anyone getting caught or getting in serious trouble from turnitin.com. Since being in college, the problem has only continued and I have seen students copy and paste whole parts of papers, or just take the whole paper itself, and turn it in. I found this article that showed an example of a professional company being caught for plagarism and I thought I'd show it, but I don't think the problem will get any better in the future. In fact, I feel the more the Internet is up and running, the more articles and papers will find themselves published on it and the harder it will be to stop.
Link-http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/11/sunderland-based_magazine_cook.html

Reconsidering Perspective on Grammar

I read the piece "Reconsidering Some Perspective Rules of Grammar and Composition," by Bradford R. Connaster, and I found it very interesting. He set out to try to explain that there were two different types of grammar in the language that we use to communicate, and they are organic grammar and perspective grammar. He explains organic grammar as the grammar that has been hard-wired into our brains and that we understand from the way we heard it and first developed it. The perspective grammar is the grammar that was taught to us in school and the way that grammar "attempts" to explain the way of a language. He says attempt because he says that there are exceptions and that not everything can be understood through guidelines and explanations. I agree with this and I think he is on to something. He goes on to point out how a reader who has an issue with either their perspective or organic grammar can be thrown off by the usage of the writer in the same area. They may have an inner conflict with these relationships and it will interrupt and affect their reading of the piece as a whole. I believe that at times there is a want to write things a certain way because of the way they make sense in sounding them out or following rules, but we can't do it because it breaks either our organic grammar or our perspective grammar. I also strongly agree at the end when he says perhaps becoming an expert means that a different code of writing is applied for the audience one is writing for and there are different codes for all different audiences. He says that we should write in different ways and that discriminating in this way is a good thing, because it can make what one is writing have a much stronger effect. I agree but it also makes me nervous because I feel I haven't completely understood my own yet. Anyone else have thought?

Individual Web Site

I am starting to design my first web site for Writing for the Web and my first impression on my own is that it is much harder than I thought. It really isn't hard in the sense of making a page, becasue I feel that almost anyone can do that if they can just understand how to work the program. The hard thing about designing my own website is being able to be original, but also effective. I want my page to be unlike anyone elses
I have seen, but it's hard when those sites are my interpretation of an effective website. I find myself designing a lot of stuff on my page that I've seen before and while it looks good and works well, it isn't original. When I try to be original and coem up with something new it feel like it is almost being forced, and I feel it ends up actually taking away from the website more than it adds. It may be a problem with me and the fact that I don't tihnk I'm a very visually creative guy, but it's hard to think of better ways to explain or show your informatuion without using some of the methods that the best web sites use, becasue that is precisely why they are the best web sites. I'd like to try to do something that nonoe has done before andf be effective at it, like a navigation toolbar in the center of the page or something, but at the same time that doesn't seem practical. I'm still working on finding that medium that will make me happy with my personal web project, catches people's eyes, but still is very useful to both me and anyone needing information about me.

My Thoughts on Visual Rhetoric

     Visuals seem like they are always a godo thing to include with any written assignment. Everyone knows just reading the information given can be boring and unappealing, so everyone tries to spice up their documents using some sort of visual rhetoric. The Internet made this even more prevelant as images were able to be shared very easily amongst people and the same picture can be used a countless number of times without the knowledge of the original publisher of the image. It is funny becasue soon we will be able to place some sort of visual for any idea or document we are considering, but the question is whether or not this is always a good thing. I have noticed that a lot of images are used for the purpose of purely decorative and there is no new or sometimes even no information at all in certain pictures that can relate to a topic. In thisi nstance, a person should refrain from using these images as they will not only act as a minor distraction to the document and will actually take away from its overall effectiveness. The key is to use images that really can display the information in am roe effective way, by visualizing it rather than reading it off the page and internall visualizing it. Images should be a vision for thei nformation that the author came up with in order to not have to make the reader do it themselves. The image should aid the reader, rather than distract them. Visual Rhetoric as I see it is not always a good thing, but it can be very effective if used the right way.

My Experience With Web Writing

Web Writing has been something that I have grown up reading. I remember the days when my dad would read the newspaper every morning as we would have breakfast. I would ask him how he could read so many articles everyday and he would tell me it's the way he keeps up with what's going on in the world. By the time I reached an age where what happened around me had much more relevance to my life, I was reading articles from things such as yahoo.com and my cellphone. These articles are written for a different audience than the ones my father read, because they are more for scanning than ever before. A person reading an article for the web is probably not going to spend as much time on that article as one would if they were reading a newspaper. Also, it has become more important to provide alternative copies than ever before becasue people want to know what is being said in a faster and more time-friendly manner. Just as my dad grew up around newspaper writing being the main form of mass communication in society, I have grown up around web writing as the main form of mass communication. Web writing is important to understand becasue the writer wants to best get across to their reader that which they are writing about. Effectiveness to me is the most important thing becasue it opens up the subject for further discussion and interest. Much more can come out of something written if it leaves an impression on the reader, whatever the methods used may be.

Typography-What it Means to Me

      When I think of typography, I think of the way that someone on the phone sounds when you're talkign to them and the kind of mood they are in. For example, if someone spoke in Times New Roman, they would speak with no emphasis in their voice, almost as if it could put you to sleep if you are not interested in what is being said. However, if someone spoke in broadway, they would be shouting what they are saying as if it were in big lights so that everyone could see it. Typography has changed a lot with the use of computers as there are no longer unique handwritings for everyone, and there are only a limited amount of ways to type letters based on the number of styles a program has. Typography sets the modd the person is typing or trying to speak to their reader in. It sets the way they want the word to be interpreted even before they are fully read and understood. It is a first impression that says what you are trying to accomplish. Typography will never go away as long as there are words to communicare through writing, and the internet and computers have given it a whole new meaning. Companies use different texts because they want to make a certain impression on the people seeing the logo everyday. Their typography is something that they spend mass amounts of money on, and while it seems like an easy decision it is a very important one that can be anything but easy.