Reflection on Open Letter Draft

In this post I will be talking about the people's drafts I reviewed and reflecting on my writing process for the final.

First off I reviewed both Isaak's and Chloe's drafts.

Did you demonstrate an ability to think about your writing and yourself as a writer?

I think that I did successfully reflect on my writing abilities. I showed that I was able to display what I learned in my writing through writing a letter, and also that I was able to reflect on my own writing in doing so.

Did you provide analysis of your experiences, writing assignments, or concepts you have learned?

Yes, After each detail I gave, I provided way to which it improved my writing ability and what it did to my writing style. 

Did you provide concrete examples from your own writing (either quotes from your writing or rich descriptions of your writing process)?

I included several links to my blog that showed my writing style and then how those writings changed later. I also provided examples to my analysis.

Did you explain why you made certain choices and whether those choices were effective?

Yes, while writing I had to make a choice over which blog posts I wanted to use as well as which writing experiences from high school I wanted to use. I think that the experiences I chose were most effective and conveyed my meaning well.

Did you use specific terms and concepts related to writing and the writing process?

Yes, I used specific terms like time management and such to talk about my former writing experiences and how this class helped me develop those skills.

Draft of Open Letter

Here is a link to my draft.

I think that my conventions are alright, but if you would like to provide what you found to be effective conventions of the style please share.  I also would like you to look at the length of the sentences and if they need to be reworked.

Reflecting More on My Writing Experiences

In this post I will be answering several questions about my writing experience in this course.

Lim, Walter, "Aren't these husky puppies the cutest things ever?" uploaded 11 July 2014 via flickr.com, Attribution 2.0 Generic.

1. What were the biggest challenges you faced this semester, overall?

I think that the biggest challenge I faced this semester was time. It seemed as though I never had enough to complete everything I wanted to or needed to. I often just completely missed homework because I forgot about them, or missed class because I overslept. With that said I was able to still balance work, school and my social aspects pretty well.

2. What did you learn this semester about your own time management, writing and editorial skills?

For my time management, I realized that I need a lot more time to plan and write than I originally thought. My writing skills were also not that good because of my writing process where I just put my thoughts down in however they come about. This way actually really helped my editorial skills because it forced, once I had finished, to sit down, slow down, and read my paper at a slower speed to really check for mistakes. This along with the mandatory peer editing, really helped me focus on what was necessary and what was just fluff.

3. What do you know about the concept of 'genre'? Explain how understanding this concept is central to being a more effective writer.

The concept of genre is the style a writer is able to get his or her thoughts across. This is one of the most basic things a writer must understand because it is how the argument is being conveyed. The conventions of a specific genre for some audience may be more effective then for a different audience. A writer must understand who his or her audience is to effectively choose the genre that is right for them. Therefore, the genre forces a writer to think about what will be most effective for the audience he or she is trying to reach.

4. What skills from this course might you use and/or develop further in the next few years of college coursework?

I think the time management of spacing out my work before sitting down and writing will be something that I will continue to use throughout the rest of my life. In addition to this, I think the most critical skill I have learned in here is probably the consideration of who I am writing for and writing for them, instead of writing for myself, because I already know what I want to say.

5. What was your most effective moment from this semester in 109H? 

I think my most effective moment in from this semester was when I finally realized why there was so much homework and how it all tied together. After complaining about all the homework to my friends one day I eventually realized that all the blog posts and various assignments were used to have us really think about what our project should be and how we should go about doing it.

6. What was your least effective moment from this semester in 109H? 

My least effective moment from this semester was when I just didn't have enough time to write my blog posts and essays all at once. I got overwhelmed by everything so I decided the best course of action was to just go home sit in my room and sleep for a day and then get back to work.

Revisiting My Writing Process

In this post I will be reflecting on my very first posts. I will also be giving a forecast of where I think my time management skills and self motivation are heading.

hot4sunny, "Master Yoda Do or Do Not, There Is No TRY", uploaded 3 February 2013 via flickr.com, Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic.

After looking over my first two blog posts, I realized just how optimistic I was about the start of this semester. For my Calender reflection, I told myself I was going to have a lot of time to get homework out of the way at night, usually around 7-10 and what ended up happening was that I would get home and either sit on the couch playing video games or just fall asleep. My time management was not that successful on other parts as well because I also thought I was going to go to every single class especially in the morning, but what ended up happening is I would oversleep or just not want to go that day, which says a lot about my self motivation.

However not everyday was bad, there were some days where I stuck to my schedule and got all of my homework done on time and everything was good. For this class, I mainly focused on getting all of my homework done on the Friday and Saturday, due to the fact that those were my most free days and I was able to just sit down and accomplish all of my tasks.

In the future, after reflecting on this semester, I have noticed several things.

• My time management skills suck. With that said, it is always great to know where to improve. For the coming years, I hope to get into a set rhythm and pattern to be able to accomplish things easily and effectively.

• 8 am classes do not work for me. I think that part of my problem was that after getting up so early in the day and then going until I get home at around 7 I was just too exhausted to get anything accomplished. However, one thing that I face is that I am not able to sleep much past 8 or 830 which means that 9 am classes are probably best for me.

• My self motivation also is pretty bad when it comes to things I'm not the best at. I am not that good at writing which is why my motivation for this class was bad, but I really did like the class overall. With this said, I think that my motivation for things that I find interesting and that are easy for me is what I focus my attention on when I should be evenly distributing my efforts.

Of these three things, I would say that one of the most important things I got out of this class was how to work effectively and get the jobs done. My writing style changed from a procrastinator to a mainly a heavy planner, making it really easy to just sit down and put my ideas on paper (or computer). I think that this reflects the way that the next several years of my life will turn out because I have learned that even though things may not be fun, they still have to get done (did I just rhyme?).

Publishing Public Argument

To get to my project 3 final click here.

To get to my interpretation, click here.

Reflection of Project 3

In this post I will be reflecting on writing project 3 by answering several questions.

• What was specifically revised from one draft to another?

From my fist draft to my final draft, I changed my focus from more central to the causes to the actual topic of quantum consciousness instead. In the final draft grammar and spelling mistakes were changed.

• How did you reconsider your thesis or organization?

I reconsidered my thesis to focus more on the actual topic instead of straying off and talking about something else. For my organization, I found myself dividing my sections and appropriately connecting them.

• What led to these changes?

After reading the peer review and then returning and reading my paper again, I realized that a lot of the things that the reviewer acknowledged were problematic with the continuity of the paper.

• How do these changes affect your credibility as an author?

I don't think these changes affected my credibility that much because I didn't add anything that added or took away from my credibility.

• How will these changes better address the audience or venue?

These changes will better address the audience by talking about the actual debate instead of diverting the discussion to something else. I also think that these changes will also fit more with the venue due to the fact that articles on slate tend to focus more on the actual debate instead of going off on a tangent.

• How did you reconsider sentence structure?

Before I actually sat down and wrote my paper, I thought about how I wanted my paper to sound and thought about the certain sentence structures. I decided to take on simple sentence structures to keep my audience engaged and interested.

• How did these changes assist your audience in understand your purpose?

I think that these changes helped my audience understand my purpose by keeping them interested and engage in the text. This allows for them to understand things a lot easier and process the information I give them better because they are small tidbits at a time.

• Did you ever reconsider the conventions of the particular genre in which you are writing?

Before I actually started writing, I wrote down all of the conventions I needed to use so I did not need to return and go back and reconsider them.

• How does the process of reflection help you reconsider your identity?

I think that after reflecting on my writing, I see myself to be really a heavy planner and that can be seen in the previous questions that show that I like to plan out before I actually start writing.

Reflection on Project 3 Draft

In this post I will be providing links to the commentary I have done on other peoples project drafts. I will also be answering questions about my draft and my process for drafting.

Swearingen, Johnathan, "Quantum-Physics" uploaded 22 February 2008 via deviantart.com. Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 3.0 License.

I review both Lawrence's and Isaak's drafts.

1) The only person to review my draft was Victoria Snapp.

2) I found Victoria's comments on my article to be quite helpful specifically the discussion about my purpose. I found that after looking back over my article it did seem to be more focused around the difficulty of scientific interaction instead of the quantum consciousness debate. The vast majority of what she commented on was what I was hoping for like appealing to a larger audience with the humor. She comments a lot on the humor in my paper which I hoped is what would draw people in and keep them interested in it, which she was.

3) The section that I need the most work on is the purpose section. I will take care of this by either adding another section about the debate itself or possibly adding more on the debate at hand in one of the paragraphs. I also think that I need to stay focused on the the topic and not go off on tangents about useless information and jokes.

4) I wasn't able to attend any meetings because the times that I would be able to go were taken by the time I got around to RSVPing, however after looking at the peer reviews of my article I feel very good about the direction of my paper.  I think that there is a little bit more content I need to add but the vast majority of my argument is complete. It seems that it is very humor driven which is what I wanted so possibly looking a bit more at how to revise the humor or focus it on the topic and not stray away from it.

Draft of Public Argument

In this post I have included a link to my draft of a public argument and have also indicated what I need people to look over.

The link is HERE

I would like feedback on how clear my argument is. This genre tends to be medium length but is intended to be easy to read, engaging and all around fun.  So if you are not interested in the topic or if the writing itself seems really dry let me know and I'll try to fix it. I am also beginning to upload graphic onto the project so there is a possibility that it may be better after the graphics have been put on. As always thank you very much.

Project 3 Outline

In this post I have provided a link to my outline for my public speech.

Here is the outline

My Rhetorical Action Plan

In this post I will be discussing my audience through a series of 5 questions. I will then be discussing my genre and providing links to various examples. To conclude this post I will be discussing possible actions and reactions against my type of writing.

Setaou, Hervé "Dying (plasma) Star" September 5, 2015 via Flickr. Creative commons license.

Audience

• My audience probably does not know much about the topic of quantum consciousness but I am essentially using this topic as a jumping off point for talking about what caused this problem. They may be more people who know about the more quantum aspect of the controversy but other than that it is not assumed that they have any superior knowledge on the subject.
• My audience will generally be well educated and will most likely be interested in physics. In addition they will probably be into various forms of humor.
• I think the most effective form of arguing will be through logic and pathos. These two combined keep the reader interested as well as informed making it easy for people to absorb the argument.
• I think that graphs will not  be as useful as maybe more interesting pictures or funny cartoons because there are plenty of funny cartoons that touch on the cause and might be better at conveying the message than words.
• Hopefully my audience is listening to my argument because it points out flaws in the way that we approach science nowadays. I do not know what my argument would motivate my audience to do but I hope it encourages them to think about science as a process and collaboration not just a single person coming up with entire theories.

Genre

Opinion Pieces

Scary Politics

Make Peer Review More Public

• The function of this genre is to argue an authors point in a funny and exciting way
• This genre is generally used on Slate.com as a means of arguing a point for an author.
• This genre mainly utilizes logos and pathos to convey its message.
• This genre generally has some form of picture or a fun, exciting graphic of some kind that catches the readers attention.
• This genre generally has a more informal, funny tone to it and that is what I want to use. 

Straight up Facts

Social Stingers

The Sad Truth About Zonkeys and Ligers

• The function of this genre is to convey lots of facts at once to the audience that it being considered.
• This genre is often used in more academic magazines as well as newspapers, online journals and online blogging.
• The main rhetorical appeal for this genre is logos due to the large amount of fact being presented and backed up scientific research.
• This genre generally sports a more logical graphic like graphs and charts and analytical pictures.
• This genre uses definitely an informal tone which is accompanied by a rather academic undertone.

Positive Reactions

The positive reactions that I want to come from my argument are:

1. General awareness of how science is take: giant collaboration.
2. Understanding that there needs to be more conversations between various fields of science and not just retained to one subject.
3. Attempting to find ways to solve the issue of cross-disciplinary communication.

Negative Reactions

Some of the expected negative reactions that might come from this argument are:

1. Disagreement that there needs to be more communication between various fields of science. 
2. An even more polarized scientific community where each branch keeps to itself.
3. Blaming one field in particular for the problems of miscommunication between the fields.

Analyzing My Genre

In this post I will be giving 5 different examples of my genre and provide concise answers to several questions.

Scary Politics

Make Peer Review Public

Do Science and Religion Conflict

Religious Rants in the Classroom

Doubt Denies Denial

Social Context

• These genres are typically set on the internet specifically slate.com.

• The subject of these types of genres tend to be science; however anything can be the subject of this type of genre.

• Science writers and commentators use this genre as a way to commentate on science.  In addition to this many different writers and commentators use this genre.

• This genre is used when someone is commentating on something. It is typically used as a light-hearted commentary that easily gets across the message without being too serious.

Rhetorical Patterns of the Genre

• Pictures and commentary are the main parts of this type of genre. Also included in this type of genre are jokes and general information and contextualization of the subject at hand are useful.

• There tends to be a general trend of starting with some simple facts and logos appeals, then appealing to the ethos. This tends to be the general trend with pathos added throughout the piece to add humor and light-heartedness. These threes appeals tend to be spread quite equally however it seems as though the logical side and emotional side are weighted much more heavily than the ethical side.

• The way this genre starts is usually through contextualization of the issue and then continues onto the authors opinion on the issue. After that there is usually a picture and then some snarky comment and the author concludes the piece by giving a possible solution or not even a solution just more snarky commentary.

•  The sentences in these articles share a similar brevity and straightforwardness. In addition to this the sentences seem to be somewhat snarky in the good way.

• This type of genre uses a lot of technical language incorporated with lots of soft language. There is a very strange combination of both academic and technical language with humorous language.

Patterns in the Social Context

• This genre includes mainly people who have some what of a technical background in the subject that the article is about and people who are interested in the subject. It excludes people who have no clue about what the author is talking about or are not that well educated.

• This genre encourages readers to get a joy out of reading the article while at the same time taking away a new knowledge of the subject.

• The people who use this genre tend to have the assumption that the audience they are talking to are fairly well educated and have a liking for humor, even if it may be a little off sometimes.

• This genre treats knowledge and humor as most important in the article. It does this for rhetorical strategies as well as keeping the audience engaged. This genre favors formality the least because it focuses so heavily on keeping the audience engaged and excited about reading.

Considering Types

In this post I will be figuring out which of the types of arguments I will be using and why I chose that particular type.

Garcia, Javier, "Broken Text" Uploaded 19 Dec 2005 via flickr.com, Attribution noncommercial 2.0 Generic.

For my argument type I think that I will use is the causal argument because it fits best with the purpose I am trying to propose. I chose this because I think knowing where and how the debate started is helpful in finding a solution to the problem. I do not know of any possible solutions to this problem besides not getting into fights with other disciplines so I do not think that a proposal argument will be helpful here. There are also no current solutions to this debate there for both the evaluative and refutation types, there is nothing to evaluate or refute. Finally the position type is not helpful for the same reason that the evaluative and refutation types are not helpful. This leaves me with just arguing about what caused this argument, which is actually exactly what this type of debate needs added to it as opposed to just the arguments by both the neuroscience and physics fields.

Analyzing purpose

In this article I have created a Coggle that examines the purpose of my argument and will also examine the audience that will likely take action for my purpose.

Kisiel, Elliot, "Purpose", Screenshot of my screen 3 November 2015
 

For my audience I think that there is a vast number of people in the science community who would be interested in my piece and would be likely to take action. Slate.com is a great place for this because it combines both novice people who are interested in science as well as people who are scientist. Slate.com has a large amount of people who are scientist and who visit the science portion of their website.

Analyzing Context

In this post I will be answering questions concerning the context of the argument I am involved in.

Lumu, "The Unofficial Context Logo" uploaded 22 April 2009 via wikipedia.com, Attribution-sharealike 3.0 unported.

• What are the key perspectives of the debate you are studying?

Two of the major perspectives involved in this debate are the physics perspective and the neurological perspective. The physics perspective argument claims that the argument that quantum consciousness is nonexistent, while the neuroscience perspective argues that there are vibrations that cause consciousness.

• What are the major points of contention or disagreement?

The major points of contention between the two perspectives is that one argues that there is such thing as quantum particles creating quantum consciousness while the other claims that things like that do not exist.

• What are possible points of agreement?

Possible points of agreement are that there are quantum vibrations in the brain. This is possibly the only thing that the two perspective agree on.

• What are the ideological differences?

The ideological differences is that one of the perspectives is centered around the brain and what happens inside of the brain while the others focus mainly on the physical particles not their implementation on the brain. 

• What actions do the perspectives ask their audience take?

Both sides want their audiences to agree with their position. For the neuroscientists they do this by asking their audience to specifically research what the possibility of quantum mechanics on the brain could mean for the future of consciousness. For physicist, who are more recluse ask their audience to recognize that there is no such thing as quantum consciousness.

• What perspectives are useful in supporting your own argument?

I think the perspectives that are most useful in supporting my arguments are the physics perspectives because they tend to be the ones reacting to the perspectives of the neuroscientists.

• What perspectives will be your greatest threat?

The most dangerous perspectives for me will be the perspectives of the neuroscientist because they often try to make the physicist look as though they are incredible and crazy.

Audience and Genre

In this post I will be discussing the audience for whom the questions I have identified will be useful and where I would go to publish these results of my research.

Extended Annotated BIbliography

In this post I have included a link to my annotated bibliography concerning the controversy surrounding "Quantum Consciousness".

futureatlas.com, "citation needed". October 30, 2010 via flickr. Creative Commons Licence. 

Here is the link.

Narrowing My Focus

In this post I will be choosing three of my favorite questions about my controversy and then discussing why I like each of them.

Overland, ANdreas, "Upper Hallway Narrowing", uploaded 2 April 2010 via flickr.com, Attribution Nodervs 2.0 Generic.

• Is it just the physics community who is involved in this idea or are there other fields and groups who have stakes in the idea of quantum consciousness?
• What sparked this controversy and what made it become so big?
• Where was the first concept of quantum consciousness published and who owns it?

I think that these questions are the most interesting for 3 reasons. For one, I believe that the strongest parts of arguments come from understanding the history of the subject at hand. Two of these questions directly address the history of the controversy itself and in turn will make for a stronger argument. Second, understanding if this topic is isolated strictly to the field of physics, or like Francis criticized in his article if this is a cross disciplinary study and in turn how does that affect the ideas presented by the papers. Finally I think that the these three questions when taken together form a unique possible question centered around two questions: who and where. By completely cutting down to the who and the where it will be much easier to create an argument based on these questions.

Questions About Controversy

In this post I will be asking 3 different for each of the questions who, what, where, when and how concerning one of the previous controversies I have examined.

Bellucci, Marco, "Question Mark", uploaded 4 Aug 2005 via flickr.com, Attribution 2.0 Generic

Who

• Who in the physics community supports the idea of quantum consciousness and why do they?
• Who are the factions surrounding the idea of quantum consciousness and what are their factions called?
• Is it just the physics community who is involved in this idea or are there other fields and groups who have stakes in the idea of quantum consciousness?

What

• What are the arguments for and against the idea of quantum consciousness?
• What are the main ideas and arguments of each of the factions involved?
• What sparked this controversy and what made it become so big?

Where

• Where are each of the factions based out of?
• Where was the first concept of quantum consciousness published and who owns it?
• Where does this idea of quantum consciousness fit in the disciplinary fields?

When

• When did this controversy become a thing?
• When was the last publication of this controversy published?
• How long has this controversy lasted and how long do these debates usually last until something new is brought to light?

How

• How does the public discuss this controversy?
• How does the scientific community discuss this topic?
• How is this controversy portrayed on social media and other forms of media?

Reflection on Project 2

In this post I will be discussing my drafting and revision processes for the rhetorical analysis essay using several questions from the book Writing Public Lives.

Berkati, Muhammad, "Macro, Nature, Reflection, Beautiful, Reflections" uploaded 5 Sept 2015 via pixabay.com, Public Domain.

• I really began to revise clarity issues and not focusing on the main topics in each of my body paragraphs from one draft to another, and then also grammar and punctuation.

• My first thesis consisted of getting all of my ideas on paper and then editing. I figured the best revisions were the ones that focused more on the strategies relations with both the author and the audience and focusing specifically on those three things.

• These changes were brought on by a narrowization of my thesis and focusing more a few specific things.

• I think that when I narrowed my thesis it made both my thesis and entire paper more clear and in turn making my credibility as an author better.

• I think that these changes will focus more on what the audience needs than what I want for the audience. Since this essay is supposed to be informative, I don't want it informative just for me but I wanted it to be more centered around the audience's needs.

• I mainly focused on clarity and punctuation when providing local revisions as well as staying on topic throughout an entire paragraph.

• I think that these local revisions will help my audience understand the point I am trying to get across better as well as making the entire essay more fluid.

• No I mainly knew what kind of conventions were expected from this writing style because it is very similar to nearly every other kind of analysis essay out there.

• I think my reflection process helped me in understanding that my writing style is the kind that needs a lot of revisions and discussion with people to actually put my thoughts into clear coherent sentences. So I definitely fall in the Heavy reviser section

Punctuation, Part 2

In this post I will be focusing on three different punctuation techniques and then reviewing my draft to find out what I learned about my writing while dissecting them for punctuation errors.

ZIPNON, "Symbols, Grammatical, Marks, Punctuation, Template, Set" uploaded 24 April 2015 via pixabay.com, Public Domain.

Final Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Here is a link to my final rhetorical analysis essay!!!!

ESSAY

Paragraph Analysis

In this post I will be examining my body paragraphs for how well the tackles 5 different things as given by A Student's Guide. After doing so I will also be discussing what I learned about my writing and paragraph style.

Kim, Johnathan, "Writing" uploaded 26 March 2007 via flicker.com, Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic

After going over my paragraphs I realized two things. The first is that I need to be better at organizing my paragraphs internally. When I write them, I tend to just throw my words onto the paper in hopes that they will become coherent thoughts; however, I tend to create a confusing argument that jumps around a lot within paragraphs. The second thing I learned was that I need to develop my main point more for each paragraph. This most likely includes adding more evidence and having more analysis of that evidence to create a coherent, effective argument that will convey the main point and how that relates back to the main thesis.

Here is a link to my paragraph analysis

Revised Conclusion

In this post I will be providing both my original and revised conclusion to my rhetorical analysis. I will be revising my conclusion to answer a so what question.

ClkerFreeVectorImages, "End, Detour, Sign, Signage, Information, Motorists", uplaoded 21 October 2012 via pixabay.com, Public Domain.

Original

The use of character in this article was what drove the message of the article while logic took the back seat in the argument. In physics, the use of logic is one of the most important things when arguing. However this paper has shown that there is a possibility to convince people in the physics field using mainly ethos. While physicist are not always directly creating arguments in the typical sense, when arguing with people outside of the field of physics, these strategies from this argument are key to creating effective arguments.

Revised

In light of this it can be seen that Francis uses his character to drive the message of his article while drawing on logical arguments to show his well educated audience that cross-disciplinary research is to be taken on cautiously. From this rhetorical analysis the takeaways from this is that for an argument in physics, the best attack is either from the character or logical arguments due to the fact that the audience is typically well educated. In addition to this knowledge of understanding which rhetorical strategies to use, the other important takeaway from this analysis is to identify the difference between an appeal to character from an appeal to logic because the two often have similar qualities.

Reflection on Project 2 Draft

In this post I will be answering several questions that help me determine what I learned from revising my peer's drafts and what I can do to revise my own.

Stilianou, Harry "Beach, Sand, Reflection, Mountain, sunset, Water" uploaded 26 October 2014 via pixabay.com, Public domain.

I revised both Hallye and Casey's rhetorical analysis essays.

Do I have an identifiable thesis?

• Yes, my thesis is clear and concise and pinpoints key elements that help the writing and how effective each of those strategies are at conveying the authors message to the audience.

Have I decided how to organize my essay?

• Yes. I have organized my essay by first talking about the logical strategies the author uses. I then continue to talk about how the author disguises his ethical strategies as logical and then conclude by talking about the author's ethical strategies.

Did I identify and analyze the five elements of the rhetorical situation?

• Yes, I have identifies who the audience of slate magazine is, the author's credentials as analyzed in the ethos section, the context which this article is in-slate magazine last year online-what the author is trying to convey and how he goes about doing it.

Did I explain how and why certain rhetorical strategies were used?

• Yes. For both the logic and ethical arguments I identified the use of the cartoon and why that is important, the transitions, and for ethical the author's expertise.

Am I thoughtfully using evidence in each paragraph?

• In each paragraph I mention either the author's background or the text but I only ever quote once. This is because the author uses strategies that do not rely on quoting but rather on the visual appearance and knowledge of the author himself.

Did you leave you readers wanting more?

• I believe I did, but that is from my point of view. I did answer the so what question about why this analysis was useful and hopefully got them thinking about different ways in which the rhetoric for physics might come in handy.

Punctuation, Part 1

In this post I will be examining three different uses of punctuation and how to use them. I will also be talking about how it helped me and what I learned in each section.

ZIPNON, "Stars, Stripes Font, Template, Patriotic, USA, America", uploaded 18 June 2015 via pixabay.com, Public Domain.

Comma

In the comma section, I learned that the comma is one of the most useful, as well as the easiest punctuation to misuse.  I often use a lot of commas in my sentences because of the amount of information I like to cram into one sentence. For me, the most useful parts were the sections on restrictive and nonrestrictive elements as well as the listing sections. Since I like to use a lot of descriptive words, phrases and other elements to describe things both of these sections helped with those. In the restrictive sections the most important parts for me was the fact in distinguishing between what need to be separated with a comma-the restrictive-and those that do not-the non restrictive.

Apostrophe

For the apostrophe section the most useful information for me was the fact that the joint possession and the part on misuses of apostrophes. In the joint section I have always had the problem of where to put the possession when talking about several different nouns. In this section I figured out that it comes at the very end not after each one of the nouns. I also found out from this section that the most common misuse of apostrophes is when nouns are not possessive which I am guilty of every now and again.

Quotations

I thought this was one of the most important sections for this paper because of the amount of necessary evidence that we need to use. I found that the most useful parts of these sections was the punctuation placements and the section on quotes within quotes. I have never really learned any of the conventions of using quotation marks so the placement of periods always confused me because of the MLA puts the period after the citation and other styles put it in the quotation. In this case the fact that I put the period inside the quote except for MLA citation helped me tremendously. I also had never learned the style for quoting a quote that was quoted, and the use of single quotation marks described in the book helped me do just that.

Reflection

I revised both Casey and Hallye's drafts. Hallye used quotation marks superbly when titling articles and such but like me fell into the trap of punctuation mistakes when quoting. One example of this was when Hallye said, "he claims he worries the decision is 'a harbinger of the new arbitrariness of rules in Russia...like what happened in the obscenity rulings that closed down a lot of theater plays'. ." and places the period outside of the quotation. While this is a small detail it is important to take note of. For Casey, I found that she tended to be more hesitant in using commas but when she did, she did a very good job at it like when she says, "This article was both in print and online, which means a broader audience was targeted than if only one medium was used.". All in all both drafts were good (while one was incomplete) but good ideas in both.

Revised Introduction

In this post I will be completely revising my introduction and including what my introduction used to be.

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Original

Dating back to Aristotle, science was conducted not as it is today but more of a philosophical debate leading to many misleading theories and wrong assumptions. That still goes on today somewhat when people try to mix one field with another producing an incorrect and misleading theory. To Matthew Francis, such ideas like this and others where scientist from one field try to talk about problems in another should be taken on very cautiously. In his article, “Quantum and Consciousness Often Mean Nonsense” Francis uses various rhetorical strategies to attack these cross disciplinary studies. Although Francis does use some logical strategies to convey his argument that cross disciplinary research should be done with caution, they hinder rather than help his argument while his use of his character, such as his expertise and use of outside information, is what propels the article forward to convey his message to his rather educated audience. Francis also tries to disguise his ethical argument as a logical argument through means of stating facts with no back up to said claim.

Revised

Physics has many uses in fields from biology and chemistry all the way down to sociology. In the article, "Quantum and Consciousness Often Mean Nonsense" by Matthew Francis, Francis uses various rhetorical strategies in relation to the rhetorical situation to convey to his educated audience that cross-disciplinary research should be done with caution. This paper will examine how the author uses these strategies to convey his argument by deconstructing his strategies and in turn showing how to become more aware of how to construct an argument in the field of physics.

Project 2 Outline

In this post I will be talking about a reading and how it help develop my outline for project 2. I will also be providing an outline of my paper to both help me and so you can see how I am moving forward.

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I found that the most helpful parts for me were the thesis, body and conclusion. I have always found it somewhat difficult to write a thesis when it comes to analyzing rhetoric, but this section helped me by giving me a question to answer. By being able to just answer a question, the thesis became a lot simpler. I have also found it somewhat difficult to transition between paragraphs and concluding paragraphs. These two problems were addressed by the section entitles body and again gave me a somewhat easy question for each paragraph that I could easily answer. Finally in the conclusions section I found the entire conclusion section helpful because I used to only restate the thesis and then add a couple extrapolations from the analysis or connect it to other areas of study, but the section gave a lot more ways to write a conclusion and in turn made it a lot easier to write.

• Introduction
• Context
• Why I am writing this?
• Who I am writing this for?
• Why does it matter?
• Thesis: The main use of ethos is stronger than the logical arguments produced.
• Logic
• Structure of the article.
• Discuss how it draws the reader down
• Breaks the article
• What kind of logical progression it creates
• How this interacts with the audience
• Use of hyperlinks
• How are these a logical argument
• What does it do for the audience
• How this ties into the ethical appeals
• Transition between logic and ethical
• ethical disguised as logical
• credible sources
• Ethical
• Expertise
• How does this act as a logical argument
• Why is this an appeal to the character
• How does the author effectively use it
• What does this do for the audience
• Why is this so effective
• Author
• Why is the expertise effective
• What allows for the expertise appeal
• Conclusion
• Restate thesis
• Answer the so what
• Not about subject about the rhetorical analysis as a whole

Draft of Rhetorical analysis

In this post I have provided a link to the draft of my rhetorical analysis.

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To my peer reviewers, first off, thank you, second I hope you guys can look for lots of grammatical errors and where my lines of reasoning fall short. I tend to sometime be a little too wordy as well so if you find places that seem like they keep droning on please let me know, Any other general revisions are greatly appreciated.

Practicing Summary and Paraphrase

In this post I will be taking a significant portion of the text I am analyzing and put it into my own phrase highlighting the key point in the text. After I paraphrase the quote I will be summarizing it into one sentence.

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Original Source

"I hold degrees in physics and have spent a lot of time learning and teaching quantum mechanics. Nonphysicists seem to have the impression that quantum physics is really esoteric, with those who study it spending their time debating the nature of reality. In truth, most of a quantum mechanics class is lots and lots of math, in the service of using a particle’s quantum state—the bundle of physical properties such as position, energy, spin, and the like—to describe the outcomes of experiments."

My Paraphrase of the Original Source

Matthew Francis talks about how he taught quantum mechanics for a long time. He thinks normal people think all quantum mechanics is, is contemplating the universe. However, for Francis, experiments in quantum mechanics usually take on the structure of lots of math and then trying the experiment to see if that is how it turned out.

My Summary of the Original Source

In the quote above, Matthew Francis give his own experiences with teaching and learning quantum mechanics and how it differs from the public view.

Draft Thesis Statements

In this post I will be giving you three different thesis statements for my rhetorical analysis essay. I will also be telling you a little about them, what I think of them, what I had trouble with and where my project might be heading.

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In Matthew Francis's article "Quantum and Consciousness Often Mean Nonsense", Francis relies almost entirely on his credibility through use of his expertise in the field and providing links to further reading, to convey to his rather educated audience that cross-disciplinary research should be a cautious pursuit. While he does rely heavily on his character, his logic strategies hinder his argument due to the lack of persistent use of logical arguments.

• This thesis, while I think is not as strong as I'd hope it'd be does have everything that I want to talk about. My main struggle with this thesis was that the wording of my thoughts about the article was hard to put into a readable statement. Using this thesis, I would probably continue by heavily analyzing his use of ethos then continue to show why his logical argument falls short.

Although Matthew Francis does use some logical strategies to convey his argument that cross disciplinary research should be done with caution, they hinder rather than help his argument while his use of his character, such as his expertise and use of outside information, is what propels the article forward to convey his message to his rather educated audience.

• I think this is the stronger of the two theses because it seems more condensed and seems to carry more power behind it as a result. From this thesis, I would continue by discussing his logical argument, then explaining how his ethical argument is disguised as a logical argument and the concluding by discussing in detail why this article uses ethos so much.

Analyzing My Audience

In this post I will be discussing the audience I am addressing. Specifically I will be analyzing them using a list of questions from A Student's Guide.

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Who am I writing for? What are the audience's beliefs and assumptions?

• I am writing for a new student to my field who has no clue how to write a public opinion article in my field. Some of the assumptions about them is that they are interested in the subject but have no clue how to write any form of opinion article.

What position might they take on the issue? How will I need to respond to this position?

• The audience will most likely agree that the writer of the article does use a lot of logical strategies however I will need to respond to this by showing that the author isn't using logic that much but is more heavily relying upon his character.

What will they want to know?

• The audience will want to know how the argument the author of the article is presenting is conveyed. In other word they will want to know how the author argues his 

How might they react to my argument?

• I think they will be somewhat confused about how the dependence on ethos overtakes any other form of rhetorical strategies.

How am I trying to relate or connect with my audience?

• I will try to establish a form of character and authority as a person who has some form of hidden knowledge about the text and how it works that I am bestowing upon the audience.

Are there any specific words, idea, or modes of presentations that will help me relate to them?

• By using words that convey a deeper understanding of the text and background knowledge in the field I will be able to convey a sense that I know what I am talking about and not entirely BSing this essay.

Cluster of Quantum Consciousness

For this post I created a Coggle outline of my rhetorical analysis and how to put it together. I will be discussing what I did and why it is important.

Kisiel, Elliot, "Screenshot of My Coggle outline", taken 7 October 2015 via coggle.com

In the outline above, I essentially broke down the questions into three different branch and from there broke those branches down into the important details. Each of the branches covers one of the major topics in my paper and as such are split into those groups allowing for easy access to the information and implementation.

Analyzing Rhetorical Strategies in My Text

In this post I will be analyzing several different rhetorical approaches in my text. I will be analyzing the ethical, logical and emotional arguments in my text. In each of the of the rhetorical arguments I will be answering several questions associated with them.

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Ethical

• What are some devices the author uses?
• Expertise- "I hold degrees in physics and have spent a lot of time learning and teaching quantum mechanics."
• Reliable Resources: The author utilizes hyperlinks so the reader can be directed to more information on the subjects.
• Counterarguments- "I’ll hedge my bets: Maybe there’s room for some small quantum effects in the brain, but I sincerely doubt those will be directly relevant for consciousness."
• How and why would the author use these?
• The author uses the three devices above because overall it strengthens his argument. The author uses his expertise by stating that he has taught quantum physics and has a PhD in physics to show that he knows about quantum mechanics. The use of reliable sources shows that he draws his information from sources that don't provide "crackpot" information. Finally the acknowledgement of the counterargument shows that he knows about the other peoples opinions and can put them down in a logical manner.
• How do these affect the audience's view of the author's credibility?
• All of the above device add to the author;s credibility because it makes the audience think that he knows what he is talking about because he has a science background and provides information about the things hes talking about so the audience knows that hes not making up complete bullshit.
• How do these strategies affect the overall message of the text?
• The above strategies overall reinforce the credibility of the article. In doing so the author is reinforcing the message the article by providing less opportunities for the reader to poke holes in his argument.
• Does the author have biases that affect his credibility?
• Yes the author has a bias against people who are not as intelligent. For example, when the author says, "We don’t know exactly how some things in quantum physics work, we don’t know exactly how to go from the brain to consciousness, so maybe consciousness is quantum." which, while seems unbiased, actually has a somewhat condescending tone about it which takes away from the credibility of the author.

Emotional

• What are some devices the author uses? 
• Images:The author has a comic which breaks the text half way through to give the reader a break from reading
• Humor: The comic the author uses has a somewhat dark, yet still relevant humor to it.
• Tone of Voice: "We don’t know exactly how some things in quantum physics work, we don’t know exactly how to go from the brain to consciousness, so maybe consciousness is quantum." This is an example of a somewhat condescending tone of voice.
• What emotional responses is the author trying to create?
• The author is attempting to make the whole idea that is being criticized in the article seem like it is a funny idea that doesn't actually make much sense. This however at some times fails because he comes off sounding pretentious and condescending.
• What is the actual results?
• The actual results from the attempts to make the situation sound funny can come off as sounding slightly preachy. However he does succeed in making the opposing view point sound far fetched and funny.
• Are these strategies effective?
• In this specific situation I think that the strategies are effective because the intended audience is more of an educated audience who knows a little to a lot about quantum mechanics and related physics fields. Even though it may sound condescending, the author's use of it is not directed at the audience but rather people who don't know a lot about physics in general and buy bogus ideals which makes it effective for the audience he is speaking to.
• How does this affect the credibility of the author?
• The credibility of the author seems to be strengthened by using these emotional appeals because it shows that he knows 1) what he is talking about and able to use the humor and comic properly and 2) he knows who his audience is how he should speak to them.

Logical

• What strategies does the author employ?
• Logical tranisitions between sections: Each one of his paragraphs has a main point which ends with a connection to the following main idea.
• Expert opinion: The author uses both hyperlinks and his own expert opinion to help with the logical reasoning.
• Arrangement of text/images: The author breaks the text halfway through with a relevant comic which both ties his ideas together visually and breaks the text for amusement.
• What response is the author attempting to employ?
• The author is attempting to create a logical argument back by his credibility to relate to his audience. His audience is a generally educated audience which means that they relate heavily to the logical argument. This is why it is so important for the article to be logically structured and heavily based on logical arguments.
• What is the acutal result?
• The actual result is that the author produces a logically structured article that is more based off of his credibility and knowledge of the subject. This in turn makes the author's logical argument fall flat while the structure holds the logic together.
• Are these effective?
• To the audience he is talking to I think the effectiveness is not as effective as it could be. The audience, being generally educated, rely on strong logical arguments, which while its present in the article is not the strongest argument.

Analyzing Message in My Text

In this post I will be talking abut the specific as to how the message of my text is delivered to the audience and how that affects the overall message of the text.  I will be doing this by addressing several questions posed by reading.

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Three most useful bullet points?

I found that the three most useful bullet points to use while evaluating the message of the text were,

• What contemporary events may have shaped the author's view and the audience's responses
• What medium is used to deliver the message? What "rules" or conventions are typical to the medium?
• What social or historical movements are related to the topic?

I found that these were most effective because 

1) The way in which this article is published (online) means that the targeted audience is a lot smaller and fit a younger demographic making his article specifically tailored to them and not a general audience.

2) There must have been something that sparked this sudden outrage against the idea of quantum consciousness which means that the events surrounding this article are important to look at.

3) Along with 2, the common misconceptions by the public about what physic topics means has produced a lot of controversies over the years and is key to understanding why this topic came about.

Which bullet points do not seem relevant?

I found that the date of publication and the the physical materials surround the article to be less important because the date of publication was so close to current events that there is not much difference in the culture between then and now. In addition to this the fact that this was published on slate.com does not have much of an effect on the context of the article due to the fact that this article does not carry much political bias.

Are there layers to the message?

I think that there are definitely key layers to the message the author is trying to convey. For one the article's title is about "Quantum Consciousness" however the author spends a good majority of the article discussing two separate things: language in science and cross discipline research.  To the audience it may seem as though these are all connected and they are, but they are layers to the deeper message being put across: that the misinterpretation of science leads to misinformed public and lack of understanding of how science actually works and functions.

Analyzing My Own Assumptions

In this passage I will be analyzing my own assumptions I have about both the text and the culture surrounding the text. To evaluate my own assumptions I will be answering a series of 4 questions from the Writing Public Lives reading.

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1) What cultural values do we share?

I believe that I share values with the culture that is present in the text that a lot of the language in physics is misused and misleading. I also think that I share a somewhat similar view to what the idea of consciousness means to the rest of the pubic. Not only consciousness but I also think I share a connection to what the purpose of science is and that these are fundamental questions to ask.

2) What cultural values do I not share?

I think that one of the main difference between what I assume about the culture and how the cultural context actually is is that for me I have more of a knowledge base in physics so this article is written in a context with which I am familiar with and therefore have a greater connection. In addition to this I don't think that I share the same kinds of ideas of what it means to be conscious as the context that the author is putting this article in, instead I have a more philosophical approach to the consciousness question and not so much a technical question.

3) What is the difference between my culture and the culture surrounding the text?

To me the difference between the culture I was raised in as opposed to the culture of the text was that the author is writing this topic from an east coast perspective. With that said, there isn't much difference in the science however the way in which he portrays people who have no clue what he is talking about is a more condescending and demeaning tone as well as a lot more technical use of language and scientific terms.  This is vastly from the culture I grew up in where people tend to be respectful of other's lack of knowledge and people still understand what term you mean through context and not the requirement of using as technical language.

4) What is the historical difference between the culture then as opposed to now? 

Since this article was written under a year ago the culture has not changed that much however within that year the focus of science has become a much more key issue. Climate change science has become much more critical of humans and is therefore has a much larger array of people commenting on the science claims as opposed to just climate scientists.