Reflective portfolio draft
Artifact 1.
The first artifact I chose was my “Why you should Read things you aren’t Interested in” blog post. This blog post clearly demonstrates from an early point in the course, rhetorical awareness. The post’s tone and style is very informal which helps draw in readers and create a more personal connection. A lot of the post is a personal account like, “I always groaned when we had to run in soccer practice,” and, “I like football and watching cool robot videos.” The rhetorical purpose of these personal accounts is to gain ethos and have the reader trust me. After all, even the title has rhetorical appeal because it draws in the audience. The title, “Why you should Read things you aren’t Interested in,” seems to completely contradict all common knowledge, so readers are drawn in because they see the opportunity to learn something new. The title is not only to draw people in, but it’s claim is completely supported by the rest of the blog post.
http://valuesofscience123.weebly.com/value.html
Quotation Sandwich
November 2, 2016
Before
Every human on this planet has likes and dislikes. I like football and watching cool robot videos such as the Boston Dynamics videos; you may like ping pong and watching cooking videos for all I know. We know what we like. Our likes are unique and help us develop our personalities. Of course the opposite of likes is dislikes. In all honesty, I hate running. I don’t watch the running during the Olympics, I always groaned when we had to run in soccer practice, and whenever a friend tells me they went running, I say, “poor you.” In our English class, for Friday, we were assigned to read the article “Running is Always Blind” by Sam Shramski. Running is in the title of the piece, this was immediately a red flag. How was I going to chug through 500 or so words of some guy talking about his friend running? I began to slowly poke my toe into the waters of the text. I began to realize that the text wasn’t about any normal kind of running, it was more about what the brain was doing while a person is running. Being a biomedical engineering major and seeing the word “neuromechanics” in an article was music to my ears. The article even had a video of a biped Boston Dynamics robot which I had coincidentally watched the day before looking at the article. I genuinely enjoyed the article and I don’t think I got lucky that it contained some topics that interested me. The author writes well and engages the audience with his informal tone. It’s interesting to hear a first person account of being a science test subject: “For instance, the good doctor asked me to walk on a treadmill in which the belt was split in two lengthwise to drive each leg independently. He moved the two belts at different speeds to try to throw me off balance, and it kind of worked. I stumbled clumsily.” No one who can read can find that uninteresting. Delving into topics that you’re unfamiliar with is a great way to broaden your horizons and surprise yourself. You may even end up liking something you never thought you could.
After
Every human on this planet has likes and dislikes. I like football and watching cool robot videos such as the Boston Dynamics videos; you may like ping pong and watching cooking videos for all I know. We know what we like. Our likes are unique and help us develop our personalities. In all honesty, I hate running. I don’t watch the running during the Olympics, I always groaned when we had to run in soccer practice, and whenever a friend tells me they went running, I say, “poor you.” In our English class, for Friday, we were assigned to read the article “Running is Always Blind” by Sam Shramski. Running is in the title of the piece, this was immediately a red flag. How was I going to chug through 500 or so words of some guy talking about his friend running? I began to slowly poke my toe into the waters of the text. I began to realize that the text wasn’t about any normal kind of running, it was more about what the brain was doing while a person is running. Being a biomedical engineering major and seeing the word “neuromechanics” in an article was music to my ears. The article even had a video of a biped Boston Dynamics robot which I had coincidentally watched the day before looking at the article. I genuinely enjoyed the article and I don’t think I got lucky that it contained some topics that interested me. The author writes well and engages the audience with his informal tone. It’s interesting to hear about, “the good doctor [asking the author] to walk on a treadmill in which the belt was split in two lengthwise to drive each leg independently. He moved the two belts at different speeds to try to throw [the author] off balance, and it kind of worked. I stumbled clumsily.” No one who can read can find that uninteresting. Delving into topics that you’re unfamiliar with is a great way to broaden your horizons and surprise yourself. You may even end up liking something you never thought you could.
Curious Todd
October 28, 2016
Todd argues that curiosity distorts the true nature of esoteric things to satisfy the mind with simplicity. The author backs up this statement with multiple quotes. “Think of where we put our curiosities: in a bottle, in a zoo, in a glass display case with their stuffed peers. Faced with an object in isolation, the mind can stretch its muscles, crawl and explore. The blank background forces focus, a situation that we crave, but that is ultimately artificial, stripped of vital information.”Todd believes that removing a curiosity from its natural complex habitat for the satisfaction of humans, removes the true value of the curiosity. The curiosity becomes, “stripped of vital information.” The author puts focus on containers implies that it takes a container for humans to satisfy curiosity. She is implying that we cannot focus on the complex and have to create artificial premises for us to be satisfied. By describing focusing in on a complex idea and simplifying it, we miss the big picture.
Graslie
Her argument was that museums must choose what to put on display and often that choice leads to the omission of insanely interesting artifacts that are not eye-catchers. The example of the gem hall is very supporting of her argument, because she never talks about the taxidermy hall for the fish, but says that the fish could never make it in the gem hall. I believe that she is undermining her argument when she says this, because of course a fish would never make it in a gem hall, it’s not a gem. Also she shows the shame that this amazing meteor could never make it on display to the public.
Why do talking dogs matter?
September 26, 2016
This argument has consequences for people that need service dogs and furthers the way that these service dogs can help these people.
Differences in articles
September 21, 2016
The Popular Scientific Article is much shorter and the page has many ads on it. It seems less professional, but also fits the bill as a link one would see on twitter or Facebook that was shared by a friend. The article on the GT website is probably meant for research funders who could provide the means to continue research on this topic. The GT article cites the scientific paper and is a bit more credible. It has a much more professional tone and more advanced language.
Spinning Science Peer Review
September 16, 2016
- For Caleb’s project
Rhetorical Awareness: Beginning
Stance: Competent
Development of Ideas: Competent
Organization: Developing
Conventions: Mature
Design for Medium: Mature
2. 1-3 sentences about your writing project thanks to peer review
I realized that sometimes my sentences need more clarification to clearly express my ideas. Also I need to learn how to develop unique and surprising insight.
3. your plan to revise
I may try to brainstorm new ideas that I could incorporate into my project. Also I need to edit some sentences to make them concise and clear.
Spinning Science Introduction
September 11, 2016
Companies create brands, which consumers then give emotional labels to depending usually on the ads that company produces. For example, Geico is an extremely recognizable brand, even small children have heard of Geico, that has created their brand with funny commercials. “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance” was a tagline familiar to me as a child before I knew what car insurance was. Ads can use the notion of science to build brands because science is generally well trusted and has the connotation of being for intellectuals. The public knows that science has progressed human civilization and when an ad includes science or portrays science, often it wants its brand to appear to be helping to progress humanity. Watching this Verizon TV commercial, one can clearly see how science is stereotyped and embedded into culture. The little girl in the commercial obviously has a passion for science that is slowly crushed through communication that is mostly coming from the parents. The ad implies that Verizon is trying to combat society and make more women interested in science and engineering.
Common First Week Video Reflection
August 29, 2016
- My process truly began when I first heard about the assignment. This is when I began brainstorming ideas about how I want my video to look and feel. I then went and asked friends to see if they had the same project. They all said they did have the same project but had no idea what they were going to do about it. I then set about writing a script. I wrote about 300 words in five minutes. I went away from the assignment for about 45 minutes so I could clear my mind for editing. I came back and actually rewrote most of the second half. The filming process was then ready to begin. I tried many takes, because I wanted my video to all be in one take. I had decided that one take is better for this project because it makes the video seem sincerer if you can see the speaker’s pauses and such. Leaving the screen for 45 minutes was definitely crucial to my editing process and was highly effective. I thought filming could have taken less time if I had had more practice filming myself before.
- I love that I was able to do my project in one take. This took me so much time to try and perfect to a point that I thought was acceptable. I’m really satisfied and proud in myself that I was able to do it.
- I maybe would’ve asked some people to watch my video before submitting it. Peer review can be so good for so many assignments. Feedback could’ve helped me if I missed something in the video, but overall I feel really good about the process.
Ed Time 