Day 8: Mindmapping

So, your final drafts are due tonight by midnight, and it looks as though many of you are on the right track so far with your rough drafts!

Today, I'd like to touch on mindmapping as a good source of idea generation, and also a way of thinking through the organization of your paper.
Your books talk about it but you can do it all sorts of different ways.  You can sketch out a map:

You can use online software like Bubbl.us:

Or, you can use my favorite approach, post-its:

Any way that you decide to get your ideas out and find new ones, have fun with it.  

I know that your syllabus says that we're having a test.  I've decided against it.  The things I normally test for are closed book, and we often memorize Aristotle's definition of rhetoric.  I can't do those things virtually (though you might want to memorize that definition for your own benefit!).  So, you'll get those points. All of you are working really hard, and I appreciate you keeping up with me.  

But...

I do want to give you your next major assignment.  You've got a while on it, but I want you to have maximum amounts of time to work on it...  So, here it is!

Research Argument Assignment

This assignment requires you to broaden the topic from one visual text to the larger cultural, social, or political issues raised by the visual in order to bring in research sources.  This assignment emphasizes research skills, including library sources, interviews, and other forms of academic inquiry.  So, you need to find at least 4 written sources that from a book, magazine, journal, or newspaper article.  In order to look at an issue in context of several perspectives, you’ll also need to discuss at least 4 forms of nonwritten rhetoric for this paper, bringing the assignment to 8 sources total, and you must disagree with at least one of your rhetorical examples.  The nonwritten forms might be an image, a video, or a song.  This time, I want you to stay away from Google searches and try to use the library a bit more.  So, no general websites (though a newspaper article online from something like LexisNexis works).  Also, I’d like you to push yourself to make your writing more formal in this paper, so do not use ‘you’ (though ‘I’ is okay).  Your argument should be constructed using both writing and images.  Using readings from Envision in Depth and your own library and field research, make an argument that offers a new perspective on the topic at hand. 

MLA format, minimum 1500 words.

First draft due: July 29

Final draft due: August 1

Grammar Review:

How about prepositions???

 Your Daily Assignment:

***Post some kind of mindmap for a potential idea for your next big paper on your blog.

Enjoy your weekends folks!

Day 7: Narrowing a Topic

I wanted to make a brief note on humor since we read Steve Martin last night.  Humor is powerful and it affects (learn the trick with that word here) the pathos of an argument.  Humor is persuasive.  People like funny things.  Sex sells, but so does a laugh.  

So, what makes something funny?  How can you too be a clever and persuasive funny human being?

Well, there are three theories about this...

The first theory about what makes something funny is incongruity theory.  Incongruity is when something is put up next to something else that doesn't naturally go together.  This is why this is funny:

Ducks are apparently the funniest animals because they're weird.  It's even more surprising to see a duck wearing a hat telling a joke.  It's incongruous.  It's strange.  So, it tickles our funny bone.

The second theory of humor is called superiority theory, and says that something is funny because the viewer is in a superior position.  This is why pies in the face or a slip on a banana peel is funny.  This theory is really interesting because it argues that laughter is a human response to survival.  When we laugh, we bare our teeth, like lions.  It shows that we are dominant.  So, it's not easy to stop laughing at the little guy, is it?

The third theory that attempts to explain why something is funny is called social anxiety theory.  This is almost the opposite of the previous theory.  Instead of being in control, here is where you think something's funny because you're in a vulnerable position.  This is the nervous chuckle...


This is actually related to things like gay jokes.  Some theorists think that people tease gays because they themselves are dealing with conflicted perspectives toward homosexuality.  So, think about your issues before you start to giggle.


***


So, it's important when you write to be very clear.  You need to make sure your topic is narrow and sound.  


"Art is good" isn't a very good thesis, for example.  It's too broad, especially for your papers.  Maybe "Pablo Picasso's blue period challenged the conventions of his previous movement" is a bit better, right?  So do that.  Take a clear and concise stance on your topic.  


One thing that helps me is to work through the five questions:

Who, What, Where, Why, and How?

Then, I know better what I'm arguing and can go from there.

Now, I'd like, for our daily activity to play my favorite game about taking stances on topics.  It's called Does it Suck?
When I teach this class in a physical classroom, students stand up (you can stand if you want to :) ).  Then, I show each slide and they have to go to one side of the room.  One side of the room is: "It sucks."  The other side of the room is "It doesn't suck."  The reasoning is that it teaches people to take a stance on a topic when their audience is public (i.e. more than just Mr. B).



So, we're revising for cyberspace.  On your blogs, for each slide, simply write _______ sucks.  And follow it up with one explanatory sentence.


So, if this were the picture:





Personally, I'd write:


Pretzels suck.  Basically, pretzels are just burnt bread with salt on it to trick you into liking it.
And then the next one here... and so on.


Enjoy the game!

Grammar Review: 

The Oxford Comma:


This is a true story, but the names and numbers are changed.


Aunt Peggy died.  She was really rich, and in her will she left $1,000,000,000 to three guys.  She wrote it out in poor cursive like so:


"I hereby bequeath $1,000,000,000 to Bob, Tom and Zebediah."


Now, you'd expect each of the three inheritors to be able to take an even amount: $333,333,333.33.  But!  It was not so.  Because the Oxford comma was missing, ol' Tom and Zeb had to split half each receiving $250,000,000, while Bob got a whopping $500,000,000.  That's a big difference for just a little mark!


The Oxford comma, or the serial comma, is the last comma in a list.  Often, journalists leave it out of newspapers to save space, and fewer people are using the Oxford comma today, but it's still important in specific cases like this.  So, for this class, I'd like you to use it.  Other places may have you do otherwise, but at least now you know!


There's a great story about it on NPR here.


There's even a song about it--although not a great one--by a band called Vampire Weekend.  You can give it a listen here.

Your Daily Assignment:

Play Does it Suck on your site.

Read/Skim EID Ch 4 (pp. 84-108)

Finish your papers.  Final draft is due by tomorrow, and I'll give you until midnight again to e-mail it to me.

Day 6: MLA

MLA formatting can be a little tricky for some people, but it doesn't have to be.  For your papers, you need to have two outside sources that will be MLA formatted.  You can get sources from the Clemson Library Website here:  http://www.clemson.edu/library


Click on Find Articles on the left, and then click on of the few databases that are in there.  If you're off-campus, you'll just need to put in your campus username and password.


LexisNexis is good for news.  It has magazines and even The New York Times (notice how titles are italicized, the titles of articles go in quotation marks).


The others, particularly Academic Search Premier, are good for more academic articles.  So, you should have no trouble finding sources.  If you're doing a Gatorade ad, for example, search for Gatorade in LexisNexis and get a quotation from some athlete about the product or something to that end.


Aside from sources, essentially, MLA formatting requires a few things, one inch margins all around and in-text Citations that look like this: "Blah blah blah" (Burns 30).   (Note Well: punctuation usually goes inside the quotation marks except when in-text citation pushes it out like this.)  Here is a little checklist I've developed for making sure that I have everything I need.


Always, if you don't know how to do something, you should grow more comfortable with Googling it.  In your future jobs, you need to be able to figure some things out on your own.  Be savvy.  Bosses like savvy.


The Purdue Online Writing Lab, or the OWL, is a great place online to reference MLA formatting.  You don't need to memorize it, you just need to be able to do it.  You're more than welcome to use online MLA formatting websites like Easy Bib, but they won't be able to do everything, and sometimes they even have mistakes that need to be fixed with a close eye.  MLA formatting isn't the most important thing in the world, but it is a chance to follow a very specific format. In your future jobs, there will be some form that you have to follow, that you won't love, but that you'll just have to learn to do.


Here you can find a good Powerpoint that goes over in-text citations that I've put together from lots of places.  The first few examples show quotation marks used incorrectly.  Seriously.  If it helps you, do air quotes when you read "Do Not Eat" on the silica package...

The FIRST DRAFT of visual rhetoric assignment--at least two pages but more is better for you--is DUE by tonight at midnight... the witching hour!  Good luck with the MLA stuff.  Of course, if you run into trouble, e-mail, but try to figure it out first.  There's also a good MLA section in your DK Handbook (that's really what that handbook is for as well as a grammar reference); also there's a good essay example in Envision in Depth that starts on page 252.



Your Daily Assignment:

• Read "Writing is Easy."  You can download it here.
• Then, write briefly about how your writing process has been so far.  What's is like to write for you?  Where do you have to be?  What helps?  What's your process?  Kant had to have an apple in his desk to write because of the smell.  Of course writing isn't easy, but humor... now that's something worth writing about...
• Make sure your papers are MLA formatted if they aren't already!

Grammar Review:


Its vs. It's

This is not really complicated.  It's is a contraction for "it is."  Its is a possessive pronoun.  It doesn't have an apostrophe because its cousins, his and hers, don't either.  Look at this chart for a really comprehensive breakdown of the third person pronouns.

	Subject	Object	Possessive Adjective	Possessive Pronoun	Reflexive
masculine	He laughed.	I kissed him.	His leg hurts.	This house is his.	He can support himself.
feminine	She laughed.	I kissed her.	Her arm hurts.	This house is hers.	She can support herself.
neuter	It is a very nice house.	I have bought it.	Its yard is big.	That cage is its.[1]	It sells itself.

So, now that you know...


Which one is it?  Apostrophe or no apostrophe?


___ when pirates say, "Thank you."


That dog is sniffing ___ bottom.


That hermaphrodite loves ___ parents.


In case you're wondering about this class, ___ all going very well.






So, now you're never going to mix this one up again.






The Oatmeal also covers this one in this list...

If you need a good hour procrastination for not writing your paper in the next 24 hours, you should watch the new show Alphas.  My wife and I watched the season premiere last night, and it was a lot of fun.

Distractions are sometimes the best cure for writer's block.  But then, you've got to get back in that chair and rock it out.

Click here to watch it on Hulu:

Day 5: Dove Ads

So, the most observations in three minutes so far goes to... Patrick, but the rest of you have until noon to beat him!


The Dove article that you read for last night, "Fat is an Advertising Issue," always rings true with a lot of students.  Body image issues run deep with guys and girls.  And a large part of that issue is a rhetorical perspective that we are given by various media.  Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty offers girls a fresh and healthy look at this issue, and I am so thankful for it.  I've known many dear friends that have struggled with body image issues.  You probably know someone who has struggled with them as well.  Here are some of the videos that were developed from the campaign that the article discusses.  In class, we often discuss what's going on rhetorically and visually for them to make their argument.  Think about those things as you watch them.  How do they use music?  How do they use text?  What about pathos?  What is the logos, or the logic, of these arguments?  Who is their audience?  Who is the persona that's crafted in each?  What's effective?  What's ineffective?  You can ask all these same questions, and answer them, in your papers that you're working on!


But first, sit back and watch:


"Evolution"

"Onslaught"

"Amy"

When you write, you should strive to make it powerful every time, just as these arguments above are powerful.  One way to do that is to make it personal as the videos have done.  Did you like the ads, or did you feel manipulated?  It's a tricky issue with rhetoric.  They're using some strong pathos throughout.  But how do they execute it?  What makes something emotional?  


Along with adding something personal or unique, it's time for you to move beyond the five paragraph essay.  You can do five paragraphs in two pages, which is all that's due tomorrow.  But the traditional approach isn't going to cut it if your paper has to be 8 pages.  (Good editing tip: if you look down the left margin of your paper and don't see any indentations, you might have too long of a paragraph).  


Your introduction can be fun and interesting.  Think about the way the essay from last night introduced it's topic. It wasn't lame or boring.  It was natural and interesting.  Aim for that.  Put in some interesting fact, make a joke, create a beautiful metaphor.  (You remember what metaphors are, right?)  Then, finally, in the conclusion, you finally get to say everything you've been trying to say the whole paper very plainly and matter-of-factly.  People worry about conclusions, but they're just closing up and recapping.  You've taken such effort to say your argument throughout your paper by using examples and whatnot, but in the conclusion you can just state it straight-out.  Conclusions are your friends.


There is a writer that I like, named Anne Lamott.  She says that writers should take a step and be comfortable writing a "shitty first draft" (her words, not mine! but good advice nonetheless).  This is what she writes in her book, Bird by Bird:

“For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous.  In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.

“The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later.  You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page.  If one of the characters wants to say, “Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?,” you let her.  No one is going to see it.  If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him.

“Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means.  There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go — but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.”

So, there you go.  Good luck as you start.  Some of you have started.  That's good.  Others...

Just write.  Writing takes time, but you can do it.  You just need to get your behind in chair at your computer with Microsoft Word open, and then start to play in there.  Have fun.  I know that it's like me asking you to step off of the edge of a cliff, but what else are you going to do?  Hang around on boring dry land?  

Your Daily Assignment:


I was going to have you respond to the Dove ads, but I've decided to give you more time with your papers, so just get started on those.  Finish those first drafts.  2 pages done by tomorrow.  I'll give you until midnight instead of noon tomorrow to finish these.  I want you to really think about them.  Just e-mail them to me!  




Grammar Review:


Check out The Oatmeal on how to use a semicolon; it's funny!

Day 4: Observation

Before we get into the real content for the day, we need to have a brief discussion about ethics.  Now, you already know that ethics and ethos are different but related things.  But we do need to talk about ethics too.

Where do ethics come from and why are they important?

Since I can't let you answer me back like I normally do in my physical classes, I'll try to summarize where our discussion usually takes us.

Ethics come from lots of places, but mainly its either natural or cultural.  We may be born with a certain amount of knowing what is good or evil, or it may be taught to us by our environment.  This debate is known as the nature vs. nurture debate, and we're not really going to get into that.  Ethics comes from your parents, your religious background, your education, the government, and so on.

But why have these stupid rules?  If you lie, it's not going to hurt anyone is it?

Rules keep us safe.  If I agree to follow the rules, and you agree to follow the rules, then we won't hurt each other, and then we can safely live in a community.  So, rules are about living well.  If we didn't have rules, well, things might become chaotic, and people might even start dying.

So, here's another question?  Why is death bad?

I mean, is it bad?

It's the unknown.  Unless, you think you know what may linger after this world...

So, death is kind of bad.  So we have these codes of ethics to follow.  And that means I need you to promise me that you won't plagiarize or cheat on your papers this semester.  See your daily assignments for that part of your blog posts today.

*** horrifyingly unnatural transition***


So, you guys did a pretty good job describing those crocodiles.  But you can do even better.

Description can make such a difference in your writing.  Boring writing is vanilla, but adding that special touch of style is what often makes the difference between an A paper and a B paper.

Observation can be key when making an argument, to describe those little aspects to really captivate your reader in interesting ways.  Sherlock Holmes, for example, was a master of making little keen observations that made all the difference in his cases.

So, go get your favorite piece of candy...


I'm serious.  Go.

Run to the gas station if you need to.

For this assignment, when I am teaching class in "the real world," I usually pass out Starbursts, but any piece of candy will do.

You should know that there is a difference between inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning.  The distinction is "elementary, my dear Watson."

Deductive reasoning starts with a thesis or a hypothesis.  Then tries to find facts based upon observations to support that original thesis.

Inductive reasoning begins with observation first, then arrives at a thesis based on the observations.  Sometimes this way takes a little longer to reach a conclusion, but it can be really helpful because you're not coming to a problem with preconceived notions.

Sometimes practicing inductive reasoning about things that we're already familiar with can reveal really surprising results.  This sometimes happens with ads because we're bombarded with them daily, so we don't think about them very well.  So... let's try it with a piece of candy...  (Check the daily assignments for the next steps.)

(Please also note that we are loosely following my calendar from the syllabus.  I would like for you to keep up with the readings there from Envision in Depth, but you really only need to skim the chapters unless I specifically tell you to read something in particular like tonight.)


Your Daily Assignment:

1. Write me a paragraph on your blog promising me that you won't plagiarize on your papers and think about why you won't.  Why is that important to you?
2. Secondly, get out that candy.  Put on a timer for 3 minutes.  You can use this one if you want.  Now, write down as many observations as you can about that piece of candy.  Just make a bullet point list down your post and go as fast as you can.  Add a picture of your candy to your post.  If you had another minute, you could make even more observations.  If you had years and years, and infinite amounts of funding, you could make even more observations!  This is what scientists do.  And then they draw conclusions.  And then they make rhetorical arguments about the way that the world is.  It's amazing.  The person with the most observations gets a "You're the Bomb!"
3. Read the article by Orbach in Envision in Depth, pages 268 to 271.  It's an important issue that we'll talk about over the next few weeks a bit.

(You can make these two separate posts if you'd like.  That seems most natural.)

Grammar Review:

Introductory Commas:

Commas are supposed to go after introductory material.  And here's the trick to that.  Look for the subject.  So, the structure looks something like this...  Blah, blah, blah, blah, S-V.

If you only have three words or fewer before your subject, then you don't need a comma, but it's not wrong to put one in.  And I usually recommend putting one in unless there's some reason not to.  Another example would be:

First, take the knife and put it into the peanut butter jar.

So, where should the introductory comma go in this sentence?

When we were calling the young boy to the road after a long day at the lake in the middle of summertime because of his bandaged feet the dogs barked.

Look for the subject.  The comma goes before that.

Here is the extra credit opportunity that I offer each semester.  If you can find an introductory comma on a piece of packaging, like the wrapper from your candy bar today, take a picture of it and post it to your blog, and I'll give you an extra 500 points.

You say, "That's crazy, Mr. B!  That's too many points for just for a little comma."

I reply, "I know...  I know..."