Joshua C. Cook English 1001 (006)

My target audience likes Hypotheticals and exploring what could have been. Alternative history is a genre that attracts an older audience as well so I should avoid slang and proclivities (Like “lit” and that sort of nonsense) that are associated with my generation to appeal my audience. My purpose is to explore a range of possibilities of how subliminal messaging could be used to both “improve” human existence, or crush/control it. Infographics work very well with this topic because dystopias are often prevalent in alternative histories and they like to use a lot of propaganda and subliminal messaging.

Alternative histories are realistic and barrow from the real world but are usually used to champion some cause or ideal. Fahrenheit 451 paints a world where extreme censorship is funded by the government so that censorship is put in a bad light, while the handmaids tale depicts a world where women are treated as property so that women rights can be better appreciated in the real world. There are many different alternative histories a lot of them center around WW2 and the nazis. l believe the reason for this is that the nazis were taught to be the ultimate evil and people don’t want them to resurface.

Genre Proposal

Joshua C. Cook English 1001 (006)

I have a few ideas for what genre I could use for my project are, Dystopian Alternative history, or thriller horror. My audience strategy is to exemplify the comedic idea that marketing is trying to influence people through sneaky underhanded tactics. I would like to explore the idea of a world where subliminal messaging is used to control the masses and keep them in line. For my infographic I would like to incorporate a subliminal message or maybe make some fake propaganda for the alternate world that I would be exploring. I think that the timeline would split around the 40’s or 50’s.

The thriller horror angle is something I’m less sold on but the idea has some upsides. I could explore how subliminal messaging could be used to split families apart an degrade a persons’ morals or sanity to the point that they’re homicidal or maybe deranged in some other way like extreme bureaucracy. I’m not to certain about this angle but I think it might work better because it could still mirror reality in a fashion closer than the first genre could.

Discusion post

Joshua C. Cook English 1001 (006)

The history is effective because it helps the reader understand the context and point of view that Yancey is coming from. The technology is part of the history and is what the curriculum is needing to keep pace with. The reason for this is remain relevant and add value to the students life by helping them navigate the texts in the 21st century instead of the 18th when the old curriculum was conceived. The metaphor was weak having the seismic activity making the world more stable doesn’t make much sense. I believe a better metaphor would have been is the foundation of modern academia settling into place, or is the house that is built upon it collapsing do to decay and neglect? I think this makes more sense because academia is a built and curated, while plates and seismic activity is natural which is at odds with a construct like the English curriculum (for it is not a natural thing, it is forced).

The starting statistics that Yancey uses in Quartet two is how many people graduated from high school, went to college, and graduated from college. The argument that Yancey is trying to make with these statistics is that the education is easier to access and more people complete some form of eduction compared to the time before the 50’s. but at the same time the percentage of people completing college is near the same that being around 30% of people who went. This to me show that it is a value system that what you get out of college wasn’t worth the price for the other 70% of people that went. The reason I come to this conclusion is that most people do fine in the world wether they go to college or not.

I’m mixed on seeing this curriculum do what Yancey intended, which was to make the curriculum more social and circulate the writing. The reason for this is I still feel like I’m just writing for the teacher and that I’m not interacting with my peers in any meaningful way. I will concede that this course would help prepare you for a writing major, and help you navigate modern writing practices. But, most people can already navigate these modern practices without schooling, because like Yancey pointed out herself people write even when not being in school or having gone to school for a variety of reasons.

This tectonic plate or change that is so monumental doesn’t seem to me to be a beginning or end. This huge change in curriculum seems like a constant a continual change that happens all throughout history. Yancey references this many times throughout her paper, like when she compared her trouble to the trouble face a hundred years ago.

Blog post #9

Joshua C. Cook English 1001 (006)

Genre is the aspect of writing that defines what content is appropriate for what you’re trying to accomplish. Genre is nothing more than the boundary around writing. Discourse communities use genre to focus their effort onto what they’re trying to accomplish.

The two genres I plan to use for my info graphic project is alternative history, and comedy. The reason for this is to demonstrate the comedic extremes of how bad things could be if subliminal messaging was more effective and was not limited by governments. The 1988 film “They Live” is a prime example of how this could be done.

Discussion post #14

Joshua C. Cook English 1001 (006)

Before reading the summary of Hyland’s book I thought that summaries would be more informative and useful. After reading the summary I now believe that you lose a lot of information that is useful or important to the text. I believe that the reason for this is that the person creating the summary could have a specific reason for reading this book that differs from mine. The differences in point of view and values could also contribute to this discrepancy as well.

The information from book about how different disciplines work in their writing does have a lot of implications that I expected. For example the more theoretical disciplines need to cite and build their ideas off of others that are respected in their field. With the more pragmatic disciplines citing others work is done less. This all makes sense, because if something is self evident and occurs naturally citation isn’t needed because this information belongs to everyone and can’t be rightly attributed to an individual.

ENG 1001, Dr Murdock

Research Proposal Assignment: What Is Your Focus?

Your research question

How does music affect people

A working title for your project

Musically Inclined

A summary of your project. Identify your topic and describe what you will be looking at in terms of the topic. Include some key terms and additional questions that will guide your research.

I would like to identify 4 major uses for music and then go between different genres and see if there is a correlation between the uses and genres. I would like to know if a genre has more positive effects over another genre or if it is generally the same. I will conduct some interviews with people to see how they use music and what genre they tend to listen to. I would ask a series of questions along the line of “what is the main reason you listen to music?” “How do you feel after or during it?” and so on. I would like to see if I come up with similar results compared to the sources I use to determine if I have a good sample size.

A description of your purpose for working on this project. Why did you choose this topic? What do you hope to learn from this project?

I chose this topic because music is a strong rhetoric medium that I haven’t explored to much. I’ve heard that music also has many uses and can be dangerous in certain situations. I hope to learn the importance of music and how it is used.

A discussion of the key challenges you will face or you imagine you will face. What concerns do you have regarding the research/project?

I imagine the major challenge I will face is determining if genre of Music plays a major role in function or not. I’m also apprehensive about the primary information gathering because I can’t know for sure how accurate the answers I receive will be.

Discussion Post #13

Joshua C. Cook English 1001 (006)

While reading the summery of of Hyland’s Book I felt less engaged with the text than I would be with the book itself. I think the reason for this is that a summery is a gathering of what the interpreter thinks is important and worth while to know, in contrast to me reading and deciding what is important to know. From looking at the chart provided in the summery I noticed that the disciplines that dealt more with tangible problems compared to those that dealt with theoretical problems cited less often. I believe this is the case because the theoretical disciplines are less absolute and is built on fifty through what is useful and working to try and continuously improve.

A similarity between our work and the work of these different disciplines is that both of our work is built off the knowledge of others that have work in the same discipline. We continue the work that was laid down before us, and in some cases we undo some of it to improve upon it. The main difference is that the work of these disciplines are highly specialized and require a lexis that is not abundantly known by outsiders. These lexicons create tighter communities and father the knowledge gained by these disciplines.

Mechanical engineering is a discipline that values the outcome and sound working mechanics. This discipline conducts research mostly primarily, which is how they can determine if the mechanics work. If I were to guide student in writing a research paper for this discipline I would first learn mechanical engineering. Beyond that the general guidelines to writing a research paper is still the same except there is far more field work to be done along with mechanical know how to apply.

Discussion post #12

Joshua C. Cook English 1001 (006)

After the assimilation of Johnson and Grant-Davie’s ideas I see that not much change has accrued in my classmates or my self. The best that can be said of the information given by these two speakers is that it helps us put in perspective the position that we are in as humans that the accumulation of information and knowledge is now so great that the main challenge facing society is how to define it all neatly. The other main issue is what information is worth while in pursuing.

I enjoy a lot of historical setting and am exposed already to the ideas that Johnson presented. In reflection all I can think is that we are very fortunate to live in such a time and place for even the lowest of us in this country haven’t had to face the horrors and suffering of what history inflicted on the ones before us. I believe this suffering is more a driving factor for innovation than the driving effects of coffee.

In conclusion Johnson and Grant-Davie have given use more ways to define words we should already have a grasp of. But with the innovation that plagues western society this knowledge is growing less and less secure, for we are becoming complacent and enthralled by the distractions brought by innovation.

Blog post #8

Joshua C. Cook English 1001(006)

Grant-Davie defines purpose in relationship to writing as the exigence. The exigence of writing is the why or the what that spurred the writer to action. This is a pretty common point of view to have, so it hasn’t change how I see purpose in relationship to writing. Purpose does however connect to many of the terms we use in class. These terms being rhetorical situation, genre, audience.

Rhetorical situation as we all know is created by an exigence (or purpose). Genre is shaped or chosen by the purpose, for you wouldn’t write an essay on the habits of tree frogs if your purpose was to apply for a tax brake from the government. Audience is what you want to reach or effect with your purpose. One term I don’t see a clear connection with is reflection, unless your purpose was to reflect or learn.

Marissa Penzanto’s purpose in her essay is to analyze the revision and writing habits of her four research participants and compare the information to Sommers claims. Penzanto does a remarkable job incorporating her primary information by explaining how she went about conducting her experiment and giving use a look at her thought process and how the participants could reflect and pick out what needed revisions. My main question about MA2 after reading Penzanto’s essay is how I locate a discourse community. This could be interesting research in its self how one finds and enters a community, depending on what the community is. The way Pensanto describes her finding the community and writer is very natural, but what would be the results if one tried to infiltrate a community?

Blog post #7

Joshua C. Cook English 1001 (006)

Knowledge to me is how someone applies information or the understanding of the information. learning to me is the acquiring of information that is relevant to ones knowledge. Ken Hyland defines knowledge as constructed information used in the academic fields to further their goals. Knowledge is distinct to information because information is something that is naturally formed, while knowledge is constructed from information. This is important because Knowledge and Information are used interchangeably because they are similar yet they have different connotations, for Knowledge is more in akin to a skill or theory than Information is.

Stephen Johnson’s discussion of Innovation provides a component to the knowledge making process that is largely ignored. Knowledge is made by the combination of multiple sources of information, and is easier to create with others around. Knowledge by theses standards is the product of synthesis.

With this new information that I’ve got from Hyland and Johnson, I think that I should try to introduce more social interactions into my research and writings. I would like to engage more with people in person to help create ideas that would improve my works.