Matt Hargrove's Blog

Outline

2009-11-12T07:21:00.001-08:00

I. Introduction
II. Rhetorical Features Audience and Purpose
a. Intended Audience
i. BW (BusinessWeek)-People with not as much business knowledge, usually, but who are interested in the subject matter of business and wanting to read articles pertaining to business topics.
ii. BSC (BusinessSourceComplete)-Database for research and scholarly articles that pertain to business. The people looking at this stuff are likely to be majoring in the subject field and possibly in need to articles to support papers they may be writing.
b. Dicourse Communities
i. BW-anyone basically with an interest in business
ii. BSC-usually students or high up corporate marketing leaders/people with high levels of understanding of the subject.
c. Readers Know?
i. BW-People probably know some normal business language, but nothing too advanced. Some people reading BW however are probably very knowledgeable about the subject-matter. People reading it probably have the most basic of business knowledge to very advanced understandings of difficult topics.
ii. BSC-Readers probably have a very high level of knowledge of advertising and marketing. They are reading articles about research done to better understand people’s views on various marketing aspects.
d. Time Spent Reading the Article
i. BW-Seeing as It is a magazine people are probably interested in an article that takes a couple minutes to read or skim over at most. They are generally uninterested in articles that are pages and pages long.
ii. BSC-People reading this are generally not worried about time constraints when reading the article. The article is all the results from a research study so the reader is probably going to look over it multiple times and look at the graphs contained in the article.
e. Writer’s Purpose
i. BW-The writer wants to express and opinion that advertising during television shows is wrong and that more regulations need to be taken. The piece is very one sided while going against “subliminal” advertising during television programs that air during prime time.
ii. BSC-The writer wanted to take a question (or a hypothesis, actually a number of hypotheses) and test them. The piece is very unbiased presenting a lot of facts that he sites in his piece and he gives the reader all his numbers from his surveys in graphs that show the results.
f. Action Writer wants the Reader to Take
i. BW-The writer seems to want the reader to take a stand and agree with him. He very obviously wants change and wants you to agree with his beliefs and help the change come about in a quicker fashion.
ii. BSC-The writer wants other people that have major knowledge in the field of marketing and advertising to further the research and expand upon the results he found. He could possibly want them to find ways to make the internet a more productive means of advertising by catching people’s attention more effectively, up near the levels that television is capable of doing.
III. Content Features
a. Selection of Content
i. BW-The writer seemed to select content purely on things he noticed. He did site one or two sources for statistical data in his work, but the rest was just his interpretation of the data and how he thinks the advertisement during television shows needs to be more closely monitored.
ii. BSC-The writer did a lot of research before even starting his surveying of people to determine what people felt was the best form of advertising. He has a well laid out article that has multiple citations of facts from other people that he uses to help give background information that pertained to the data he was further researching through his surveying. He selected various facts that kept the piece from becoming bias towards one position or the other.
b. Appropriate or Inappropriate Information
i. BW-Being from a magazine I feel that anything would go in this article. He did not present any graphs like the BSC article did, but they were unneeded. The article was mostly one sided arguments for the position that there needs to be an increase in the amount of regulation that goes into advertising during television programs. None of the information was inappropriate, but I feel had he included graphs to show that others view his opinion it would have been out of place with the article because he seemed content with talking about his views alone.
ii. BSC-The article contained graphs that were very appropriate to display data he collected. It was a well supported piece that contained a lot of information about the effectiveness of advertising through different medias—mostly internet and television. I do feel, however, that had he began putting a lot of bias into his piece it would have not fit well with the work as a whole because it was a factual work that was trying to prove a hypothesis rather than display his personal position on the subject.
c. Evidence in Support of Claims
i. BW-The writer uses very little evidence in his piece except when supporting statistics he presents to the reader. His “support” for his idea that advertising needs to change comes from his own opinion, but not much else.
ii. BSC-The writer uses a lot of support in the entire paper. He researched the topic beforehand and uses information to support all his facts. He even uses his own data he collected in order to answer the hypotheses he poses towards the beginning of the piece.
IV. Structure
a. Structure of Article
i. BW-The article is arranged very straightforward. It is just reading left to right, top to bottom. There is nothing out of the ordinary with the arrangement of the article other than it being broken up into a couple different sections with headings that draw attention to the new topic being presented. The author begins with a very brief background on the subject matter then almost immediately begins on his rant of how change needs to be made for in programming ads.
ii. BSC-The article is arranged in two columns throughout the majority of the piece. There are multiple headings within the piece that help organize the information and allow the reader to find certain pieces of information more easily should they need to do so. The article is structured with a beginning that presents the main idea of the research and the background that has to do with advertising on the internet and on television. It goes on to present the hypotheses and then talks about the research done to draw conclusions. After the research is presented and analyzed the writer talks about the conclusions he drew and then finishes with limitations of the study and ideas for further research. At the very end of the article—three full pages—he presents his works cited sources which contains nearly one-hundred different works he used when constructing his paper.
b. Serve Audience
i. BW-The way the article is organized serves the audience well in that it splits up the already small article into even smaller parts by providing different headings within the article itself. The audience is interested in a quick read and by being presented with two sections that have four and five paragraphs respectively the “task” of reading it does not seem difficult or time consuming at all. The headings also pose as transition and can possibly cut down on the number of words being used which helps cut length.
ii. BSC-This article is also broken down into shorter segments that allow the reader to find specific points or specific times when certain information is presented more easily. The article from BSC is much longer than the one from BW so it is more necessary to have various headings to allow for an easier time of information sorting. People are more likely to read over the BSC article multiple times than they are the BW so the headings are more needed in the scholarly work than the magazine article.
V. Style/Language
a. Formal/Informal
i. BW-The language the writer uses in the magazine makes it feel like he is having a conversation filled with debate. It seems like he is talking to the reader and giving them points about what he believes then follows those points with reasons he feels everyone else should agree with him.
ii. BSC-The writing of the scholarly article feels as if he is talking to an entire audience, somewhat like he is lecturing. It does not feel as if he is talking to you, but rather than he is talking to multiple people at once. This may be because the BSC piece is a bit drier than the BW piece, much in the way listening to a lecture is compared to having an actually conversation.
b. Specialized vocabulary
i. BW-There is not much along the lines of specialized vocabulary presented in the BW piece other than calling the use of products in television shows as a part of the plot stealth advertising. He explains what that is to the audience, but other than that most things appear in everyday language. Federal Communications Commission
ii. BSC-The BSC article uses a lot more vocabulary and more elaborate wordings for things. Uses things like “medium of advertising, banner ad, button ads, pop ups, online advergaming and keyword ads.” These different uses of ways to advertise may not be known the general public which is probably why you don’t find these type of words in the BW article, but since the audience of the BSC article seem to be more knowledgeable about the subject those types of words are more easily used.
c. Length of Sentences and paragraphs
i. BW-The sentences are of average magazine length, not too long, but not childish short either. The paragraphs are all two or three sentences long, tops.
ii. BSC-The paragraphs are lengthier and the sentences more elaborate than the ones from BW. This is expected though due to the differences in audience these two pieces are trying to appeal to.
VI. Conclusion

Marketing Key Term

2009-10-27T16:08:00.000-07:00

The term I've decided to identify is actually two terms that together make up one of the more clever ways of advertising. It's called product placement. Product placement is a kind of way of sumbliminal messaging. Actors drop a quick line or two about a product in a television show or in a movie (sometimes in songs too) . By doing this type of subtle advertising companies can cheaply get their product out there in a less forward manner. The route of product placement still works because people still have an unsaid dsire to be more like the big actors and actresses. If the "cool kids" on TV have those things people will want them too. This type of marketing works and can help boost sales without necessarily decreasing the pocket books of big companies as much as normal ads would.

"Shitty" Response

2009-10-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

In Shitty First Drafts the author, Anne Lamott, makes a lot of interesting points about writing in general. She talks about how everyone is really self-conscious about their own writings and they are afraid to let people read them because they are embarrassed and what not. I personally love letting people sift through my early writings because by doing so maybe somebody else can make sense of all the nonsense I was unable to figure out in the first place. I am always willing to take constructive criticism from others because I feel by doing so I am able to fully expand my writing and make it the best it can possibly be. I think writing is created from my previous experiences and the reactions to those experiences I have gone through that have led to creating me as a person.

Everything we have done or how we react to certain situations is formed from years upon years of various experiences we have gone through. I feel like writing is very similar in the sense that what we think about and what comes out of our pens is shaped by our past experience. Writing is a very broad subject matter and if you give the same topic to five-hundred people to write about, you won’t get any two that are alike. It’s just how writing is and that’s the thing I love about it. As long as you write your ideas and support your ideas then nobody can tell you that you’re wrong (as long as you stay on subject that is.) I like the idea that Lamott had about just writing everything you possibly can think of and every little thing that comes to mind when writing and then try and sort through it later is a really good one. Just start writing and don’t stop until you’re out of things to put on paper. After that maybe a few days later look through it again and try to figure out the nonsense. Then a few days after that finish it up and you should have a pretty legitimate essay. In only three sittings you can polish off a good piece of work. I like that idea, only three sittings.

Literacy Narrative First Page

2009-10-14T15:52:00.001-07:00

I arrived to the gymnasium—the same one that I played midnight tag and dodge ball in years ago—early because I was pretty excited to start tutoring and helping out the kids in my old elementary school. I looked around the gym and saw kids I knew from my classes at the high school already working with some of the younger kids. As time ticked by I sat going through some things I wanted to make sure to work on over the coming months. I was beginning to think the kid I was supposed to be tutoring wouldn’t show, so I began gathering my things to leave. I started to walk out the door when the Kidz 2 Kids organizer approached me and introduced me to a young boy in the second grade. His name was Jaymz; yes, Jaymz, that isn’t a typo that is really how his name was spelled.

Jaymz was a scruffy looking kid—showing signs of a rough life at home—that he hid behind grungy clothes and ruffled hair. It looked like he had seen more pain and suffering in his eight years of life than I had in my seventeen. A black eye and fat lip were marks he wore of an abusive father. His parents were probably drug addicts who were rarely around, but when they were, they made sure to abuse him either mentally or physically: as the marks on his face would show. His clothes were covered in dirt and getting raggedy from the many days straight he probably had to wear them. The thing that shocked me the most about this boy is that behind the dirt and wear of a life too rough for an eight year old, his eyes showed happiness and an unforgettable eagerness to learn.

After the introductions, we sat down at one of the lunch tables set out for the Kidz 2 Kids tutoring session. Jaymz looked at me and said, “You don’t hafta help me ya know. I know I’m a good for nothing dog that won’t go anywhere in life.”

How I Write

2009-10-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

When I write I don’t consider myself very ritualistic. I will have YouTube and espn.com open along with my paper while I search for the motivation to begin. I’ll just be clicking along on the internet and a thought will hit me and the floodgates of writing are let loose. I can generally write about a thousand words before I begin feeling like I have writers block. At that point I rock back and forth in my chair—more commonly known as teetering—a few times. If nothing comes to me I will set the paper down and go waste time doing other things. I feel like I have these fidgety rituals because I’m ADD. I also have a Rubik’s Cube I will do and scramble repeatedly until I feel like starting again. It’s all part of my ritual. My best ideas usually come when I am thinking about the various things I need to do for homework that evening when walking home from practice at night. I’ll begin thinking about the paper and ideas will just start coming to me. The only thing that traps me from writing used to be video games, but since I rarely if ever play video games anymore that is no longer an issue. My new distraction comes from fantasy football. I had never done a league before, but now I feel like I waste more and more time every night on it. In the future I probably won’t change much about what I do, but if I had to I would try the rotten apple trick; after all everyone could use a little bit of stress reduction.

Article on Marketing

2009-10-07T17:51:00.000-07:00

The article on marketing I found did not contain much to it. It mostly talked about how marketing and sales are both individual entities of a company and that neither can live without the other. They are both important in gaining partners and creating revenue for the company. The article talks mostly about how marketing should be directed mostly towards “warm leads.” Warm leads are people or other companies that you feel have the best shot of signing a contract with your company and by directing your marketing strategies towards them you are able to land that big contract deal with that other company. The article also talks about “cold leads” which are other companies who are interested at a very small—if at all—level. And lastly the article mentions that if you feel your marketing strategies are inadequate you can subcontract to other companies in order to better market to your specific audience.

http://marketing.about.com/cs/advertising/a/mrktingvssales.htm

Literacy Definition

2009-10-01T06:55:00.000-07:00

I looked up the definition of literacy on dictionary.com and received three definitions. I’m going to list them and write a brief piece on each of the definitions.

The first definition is “the quality or state of being literate, esp. the ability to read and write.” This is most basic form of literacy. When the majority of people think about the word literacy they think about reading and writing. I know I always did until starting English 289 when I realized literacy can be more than just reading and writing.

The second definition given is states as a “possession of education.” This definition actually brings up more questions to me than answers. How much education would one have to possess in order to be considered literate? Who is it that would determine the cut-off saying that someone of an IQ of say 90 is literate, but 89 is considered illiterate? Also possessing education is a very broad term. Some people are educating in a variety of different fields. The frat guy is probably a lot more educated in “getting women” than say the astrophysicist who is way more educated in astrophysics. The example I used probably isn’t the best, but my point is there are a gigantic number of ways to define being educated.

The third definition is “a person's knowledge of a particular subject or field.” This definition is probably my favorite because I feel that literacy pertaining to reading and writing is too narrow-minded of a view on literacy. This definition leaves the door wide open for people to be literate in multiple facets of life, not just when things pertain to books. Literacy I feel is different for every person and the only person that should determine what literacy is for that person is that person. There shouldn’t be a set of standards laid out by some English board somewhere that says you must score at least x or higher on this standardized test in order to be considered literate. There are ways of being literate beyond the reading and writing norm that most people consider.

Yagelski Response

2009-10-01T06:38:00.001-07:00

I want to say right off the bat that when I originally read the Yagelski piece I thought it was one of the driest most boring things I have ever had the “privilege” of reading. Then I went to class and the discussion that ensued really got the gears in my head turning. I guess I just needed the perspective of others to really get the most out of the piece and realize how much the work by Yagelski contained in terms of thoughts and ideas on literacy.

The biggest thing that came to mind about the piece by Yagelski is the idea that literacy was used to control people. Literacy in this sense means knowing how to read and write. The idea that it has been used to control people makes sense. Way back “in the day” only certain people actually knew how to read and write. These people were usually church officials and noblemen. By being the only people in society who could read and write it was easier to manipulate and control the common man. They had to listen to everything you said to them because they had no other means of obtaining information on their own.

Gradually the common person gained literacy, but now that they have literacy, do they still have the ability to read and write whatever they want? Some would say, “Yes freedom of speech,” but at the same time is our freedom of speech truly free. There is still some degree on censorship that goes on in the United States. When a book is being published, someone along the line, other than the author himself, has to decide if it should be published or not. If the book is not considered something that people should read because it is too offenseful or some other reason, it won’t get published. Also, some people think that posting on the internet is completely free reign and you can say whatever you want when you want to say it, but even that is not entirely true. If you post in a forum or blog on a site and one of the site moderators does not like what you post they can take it down. There is freedom of speech to an extent in the United States, but not entirely. U.S. citizens do have more freedom than many other controls that control what the press puts out, what internet websites can be accessed by its citizens and what you are even allowed to say in public without some kind of punishment.

Basically when it comes down to it, write freely. Write long, write jibberish and write in pig-latin. Just write because we all have the freedom to write and that is something that we should take advantage of.

Response to Yancey Piece

2009-09-29T18:39:00.001-07:00

The first thing that came to mind when I was reading the piece by Yancey is how important writing really is. One of the most important cases of writing in the history of the United States was in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was written declaring the thirteen colonies independent from Great Britain. I don’t write anything like that, nor do I know anyone who writes anything near that important, but I do know writing is an important thing to everyday life in the 21st century.

One of the more apparent forms of writing I can think of comes in the form of text messaging and e-mails. Long has passed the days when normal mail is sent on a regular basis and when people would actually call each other on the telephone. Now most communication is done by writing a “text message.” These types of writings are very informal, but they are used at an astonishing rate. Everyone I know seems to be constantly texting someone else. Granted most teachers may not consider texting a good form of writing, I still would consider it writing.

Teachers, or most teachers, want students to be formal, very proper writers. I agree with Yancey when she makes the point that a lot of people only know how to write to perform on tests. I consider “test writing” a completely different form of writing than writing something from the heart, as corny as that sounds, or simply writing to write. I believe that when people write simply to write they can express themselves a lot more than they are able to express themselves in a test setting where they are given thirty minutes or so to write everything on a topic they can think of. Writing should not be a rushed form of literature, rather it should be free flowing and stress-free. With everything out there to cause stress to students, why should teachers force one more thing on them to increase that stress anymore? Writing should be set more on the level of reading or other hobbies. It should be a pleasurable activity that we enjoy doing on a regular basis. There are millions of people that read for pleasure, but how often do you find someone who, instead of reading, writes for pleasure? Writing can be another form of getting away and immersing oneself in another world. Let your thoughts flow and see where your fingers take you (assuming you’re writing on a computer). Writing is a fun activity and when teachers put too much emphasis on being “perfect” and knowing the “exact” way of doing things, it detracts from the real goal of writing: write to express not to impress.

Response to "Brit's Fantasy Factory" Blog About Learning to Read

2009-09-29T16:48:00.000-07:00

Like Britton, I not very concerned about my timeline of learning to read. I don’t remember exactly when I was able to first read, but like him I do remember the Animorph books. I thought they were the coolest thing; however, I liked them because if you flipped through them quickly in the bottom right side of the pages you could see the character morph. I don’t think I actually ever read any Animorph books, but I do know I flipped through numerous ones. I remember Harry Potter growing up, but never actually read the series until I was a senior in high school. They are still probably the greatest books I have ever read, along with the J.R. Tolkein Lord of the Rings series. I have only read The Hobbit (probably close to ten times) and The Fellowship of the Ring. I read part way through The Two Towers, but never finished it. I too have read a number of books on swimming. Being a swimmer, I never seem to be able to get enough of that stuff. Most of my swimming reading, however, comes from Swimming World magazine.

Learning to Read

2009-09-24T16:03:00.000-07:00

I have sat pondering the answer to the question “How did you learn to read?” for the past twenty-four hours or so. I’ve gone back and forth about it a lot and have come to the conclusion that I didn’t wake up one morning and say to myself, “Hey, I can read!” Instead reading to me was a process, a very long and painstaking process. Learning took time, a lot of time.

It started with learning the ABCs when I was around the age of two and a half or so. Once I knew my ABCs I learned what sounds each of the letters made. My parents would read to me and I was always curious about which words looked like what. For instance in the child book See Spot Run I wanted to know which word was see or spot or run. I began recognizing the letters and putting them together into small words. My vocabulary was small and I would have to ask my mom for help on a lot of occasions, but I kept reading gradually getting better.
When I was in first grade I was put in the “advanced” reading group in Ms. Sherrill’s class. We would read books like Goosebumps and Box Car Kids, while the other students were reading simpler, shorter books. They were books that didn’t have chapters. I felt so cool because I was able to read chapter books when I was in first grade. I felt like a smarty pants. Now I know that being labeled as “advanced” is only a term. Studies have been done that prove that children who perform below average on placement tests, but were told they were “advanced” would actually begin performing at that “advanced” level. I’m glad I was labeled as such because it has helped me become who I am today, but I do realize now that it’s only a term… but back to learning to read now. I remember being told that I was able to read at a senior in high school level once I reached sixth grade.

I also remember that in kindergarten I was so excited about reading that I would teach my sister how to read every day after school. She is two years younger than I, so wasn’t going to start school for another two years. My parents were so pleased with how well she could read after I finished kindergarten that they enrolled her for following fall. She started kindergarten a year after me when it should’ve been two years. Now she is going to school to become an optometrist. I don’t know if the two have any correlation, but if she ever makes more money than me, she owes me big time.

To sum things up, reading wasn’t a wake up one morning knowing how to do it type thing, but rather it was a long process that took a lot of trial and error. Constant help from my parents and teachers have allowed me to be a good reader. It’s a good skill to have, but it has also been many years in the making, not an overnight osmosis type thing.