(A note of explanation: The Association for Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW) is an emailing list that I subscribe to to better my understanding of what professional writers do. The posts titled ATTW are about the emails I receive.)
One message regarded a survey on errors in grammar and mechanics. It was being used to see which types of errors were more openly accepted by professors and academics, and which errors were most easily spotted. I found this very interesting because we all know there are certain things that are just obviously wrong, but other errors, people can't seem to agree upon. I am sure the results would point to what a common trend is in what counts as an error and what is overall regarded as something that is okay to let slip by. As a professional writer, we may be faced with many of these "potential errors" and we might have to confer with our supervisor or coworkers what their opinions are on these errors in order to produce work that will be accepted by all. We also might have to relax our own opinions on certain errors, and be open to the suggestions of others of why it might not be and error.
There was a very interesting discussion following a call for editors for an article on Fat Studies in the journal Rhetoric Society Quarterly. So what exactly does "fat" mean? When can a person be considered fat, and is it a negative or neutral term? Is this something to be celebrated? The discussion pointed out the fact that terms such as "overweight" and "obese" are medical terms, they have widely accepted definitions. So, again, what is fat, and how does it fit in with these terms? While most may see the term "fat" as an insult, this discussion is about "taking the word back" and using it simply as any other adjective that describes a person in a neutral way; the term would lose its power to hurt. Fat studies, therefore, is studying how body size does not communicate body behaviors. Being fat is not the same as being unhealthy. One quote that I found exceptionally interesting was, "We can all hope, I guess, that Fat Studies does more for the acceptance of normal bodies than Rhetorical studies has done for the concept/term of 'rhetoric.'" Rhetoric has been a term we have focused on in the course of this class, and it is still clear as mud to me. The discussion brought up how society skews our view of what this actually means, making it even more confusing. After reading all of the messages, I concluded that "fat" and the topic of "fat studies" is a form of rhetoric (gasp!) with several different ways of perception. Fat is a controversial term that we socially construct (look at that Intro to Soc knowledge coming into play!); it does not have to be an insult!
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Midterm Class Reflection
Through this course so far, I have begun to understand writing as a creative process rather than something structured. At the beginning of the course when the idea of portfolios was introduced, I was quite skeptical as to why something like that would be necessary and how I would be able to provide drafts for different revisions or steps in my writing process. Now, I am beginning to realize that it is important to be able to save your different drafts of a project in order to see what you have really learned. The portfolio project will be an illuminating look into how I will grow as a writer this semester.
There are a few things I believe will definitely stick with me after this class is over. So far, the thing I have enjoyed reading about and listening to is the design principles. Out of what we have learned so far, this topic makes the most sense to me, and the discussions from class seem very logical. Who would not want to make their writing look more intriguing? I have really enjoyed reading the Williams book, so I think the ideas from it will continue to influence my writing projects after this class is complete. What has been the least interesting so far has been the Kolin book and many of the articles we have read. The Kolin book just seems so dry and repetitive, and much of the information is not new. Many of the articles have been so far over my head in discussion that I have had a very hard time just trying to summarize their main points. I will probably not remember things from the articles very well for this reason.
The lessons learned from class discussions have helped with assignments for this class and others. One thing that has been a very good lesson is the process of revision. I have learned that restructuring your entire paper is good – and probably is to be expected. This has been useful in papers I have recently written for other classes. For our projects so far in this class, the design elements have been helpful in creating professional looking documents. As we get into further assignments, I expect to use more of the lessons we have learned.
In the next eight weeks, I hope to get a deeper understanding of writing, including rhetoric, and also to learn more about what it means to be a professional writer; for example, what are some more things I may be doing at a future job in this field? I hope to learn more about putting together a portfolio – what to include and what to leave out, how to organize it, design it, and how to add personal touches to it. Our syllabus says we will be making websites soon also, which I think will be a wonderful skill to have. I have never done something like that before, and so I hope by the end of the semester I am able to gain this knowledge and feel confident and comfortable in designing a large project of my own. I want to feel like I can effectively use a Mac computer to create and design artful writing.
There are a few things I believe will definitely stick with me after this class is over. So far, the thing I have enjoyed reading about and listening to is the design principles. Out of what we have learned so far, this topic makes the most sense to me, and the discussions from class seem very logical. Who would not want to make their writing look more intriguing? I have really enjoyed reading the Williams book, so I think the ideas from it will continue to influence my writing projects after this class is complete. What has been the least interesting so far has been the Kolin book and many of the articles we have read. The Kolin book just seems so dry and repetitive, and much of the information is not new. Many of the articles have been so far over my head in discussion that I have had a very hard time just trying to summarize their main points. I will probably not remember things from the articles very well for this reason.
The lessons learned from class discussions have helped with assignments for this class and others. One thing that has been a very good lesson is the process of revision. I have learned that restructuring your entire paper is good – and probably is to be expected. This has been useful in papers I have recently written for other classes. For our projects so far in this class, the design elements have been helpful in creating professional looking documents. As we get into further assignments, I expect to use more of the lessons we have learned.
In the next eight weeks, I hope to get a deeper understanding of writing, including rhetoric, and also to learn more about what it means to be a professional writer; for example, what are some more things I may be doing at a future job in this field? I hope to learn more about putting together a portfolio – what to include and what to leave out, how to organize it, design it, and how to add personal touches to it. Our syllabus says we will be making websites soon also, which I think will be a wonderful skill to have. I have never done something like that before, and so I hope by the end of the semester I am able to gain this knowledge and feel confident and comfortable in designing a large project of my own. I want to feel like I can effectively use a Mac computer to create and design artful writing.
Post Write: Text Redesign Project
My group chose to redesign a baklava recipe for our project. The original recipe was a huge block of text that was difficult to read and unorganized. My group listed out the ingredients and equipment, numbered the instructions, added a picture of the product, and added a colorful border. I definitely think that our end project looked much better than the original.
The difficult thing about this project was that we had to fit all of it on one page. My instinct told me to put much more space in between each ingredient listed and make the text bigger, so that it would be easy to glance at while in the kitchen. This was not possible with this recipe, which was rather complex, while maintaining the one sheet of paper standard. We had to play around quite a bit with condensing the instructions, adding columns for the ingredients, and making the borders more narrow. I am sure we still could have been more creative with the limited space we had, and if there is something we receive criticism on, I would assume it to be that.
Our group work was very productive, which made the work for this project run smoothly. We met together twice outside of class, and worked together for part of a class period. During these times, we worked quickly and effectively to end up with a professional looking document.
The difficult thing about this project was that we had to fit all of it on one page. My instinct told me to put much more space in between each ingredient listed and make the text bigger, so that it would be easy to glance at while in the kitchen. This was not possible with this recipe, which was rather complex, while maintaining the one sheet of paper standard. We had to play around quite a bit with condensing the instructions, adding columns for the ingredients, and making the borders more narrow. I am sure we still could have been more creative with the limited space we had, and if there is something we receive criticism on, I would assume it to be that.
Our group work was very productive, which made the work for this project run smoothly. We met together twice outside of class, and worked together for part of a class period. During these times, we worked quickly and effectively to end up with a professional looking document.
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