http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR3QHoqfhX8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3dYMQgopIY
Friday, September 21, 2012
Writing Construct - Intro + Synthesis
Greg Warman
9-21-12
English 1510
Writing
Construct: Personalities in Writing
Sources:
What
determines what we write about? A past
experience has been the root of some great pieces of writing. Dreams, visions, and aspirations often fuel
the flame in the creation of a new writing. How the writer thinks, what they
think about, and their personality take over in their mind, allowing them to
write about something of interest to them.
First, the writer will strive to define their own voice in their texts.
After having a common voice that they write with in their texts, they tend to
create patterns in their work. These can
be strategies in their writing to connect with their audience, such as humor,
horror, romance, suspense, and other simple things like incorporating plays on
words and foreshadowing. All of these
ideas, when used, begin to define the writer more and more. As the writer
begins to feel comfortable with their own voice and the path they take in what
they tend to write about, it is argued that this is when their inner
personality is shown in their writing, which makes the text real, true, and
interesting. This is how I was taught to write.
Look into yourself and write something that interests me and it’ll be
“good enough.” With all this, though, to be a great writer, you’re probably
going to need more than one popular text.
The writer’s been built to be themselves in their writing. The writer, after they have had a period of
success with previous texts, will feel a sort of demand from their
audience. At this point, the writer must
determine whether or not they should write using their personality, or change
it up to meet the demands and expectations of the audience.
Personality
in writing links the audience to the author.
After many works, the audience is drawn in and can recognize a piece of
writing by the author’s voice and personality in the writing. Biggs argues that
the personality the audience grows fond of is due to the fact that the writer’s
true morals, beliefs, ideas, opinions, and spiritual strengths are depicted in
their writing. Briggs’ offers that “Your
stories are going to be and become part of you; some writers feel in an odd way
as if their stories are ‘children’ — children of the mind. As children, they
are going to be at least half you, and half whatever inspired them,” (Briggs
1).
Within the resources
I’ve gathered, I’ve found contradiction in how a writer must dictate their
personality in their writings. Two of
the resources, Biggs and Evans, state that to be a great writer, you must find
yourself, be yourself, and always show yourself and your personality in your
writing. They argue that by doing this,
you’ll find it easier to relate to your audience in your writing and that your
text will be easier to understand and grasp on to. The other two resources that
I have, Cook and Jenks, argue more about developing an idea of how you want to
be perceived instead of completely flaunting your own individual
personality. They argue that to be a
successful writer, one can learn to mold and frame their personality which will
then cause their ideas in their text to be expressed in a personality, voice,
and tone that aren’t personal to the writer, but what the writer intended to
create to grasp the audience’s attention.
Jenks and Cook go on to argue that creating a “fake” interesting and
original personality, it will gain popularity from the audience better than if
you were to be yourself. Cook argues that a writer must be well developed and
skilled to devise a personality that isn’t true to his own.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
9-18-12 Bernhardt Assignment
g Warman
9-18-12
English 1510
Bernhardt Assignment
Summary:
In “Seeing
Texts” by Stephen A. Bernhardt, the argument of visual apprehension is brought
up. This involves giving the text visual
cues that go along with the actual written text. Often, Bernhardt explains, the most logical
and important information in the text is buried beneath the text itself. With visual
texts being incorporated, the awareness of categories and divisions being
explained within the text. By using a schematic representation of the text,
such as a graph, hierarchy, or somehow dividing the information into different
categories (paragraphs), allows the reader to pull most everything out of what
the author is trying to get across.
Basically, a visual representation or design of the text is a gateway
for the reader to get all the information, especially information that was
initially hidden by the text itself, out of the text.
Synthesis:
Bernhardt
argues his point about visual representation being vital in texts because they
bring up information that the reader would not have grasped from the written
text itself. His argument of using
spatial representation for helping readers to obtain and retain information
goes hand in hand with many researchers of the human mind and human
intelligence. His theory is similar to
the idea that some people are visual/spatial learners: they must physically see
the information in charts, graphs, or other organized fashions.
Response:
Bernhardt’s
argument in this article is very interesting and informative. His idea that a visual representation of a
text helps the reader comprehend and really grasp all of the texts content made
sense to me. For myself, text that is
organized into categories, charts, or paragraphs is a much easier read and I
really draw all of the information out of it. Also, the fact that he
incorporates an example, the picture on pages 43 and 44, really helps settle
his idea and argument because when I looked at the picture, it allowed to me to
connect the dots with his argument. His argument
is valid and correct because he proved it to me by giving me an example and
causing me to see the results myself as I was able to better understand the
argument.
QDJ Answers:
4) By every student following a specific format, it makes it
easier on the teacher to grab all the information from each of the essays
written by the students. With each
student’s essay being set up and formatted the same, the information of each
essay will be found in the same spot (assuming the format is MLA and a certain
amount of paragraphs/pages are mandated).
AEI Answers:
3) Bernhardt using the term gestalt in reference to the
information that we do not originally derive from a text. He explains how using visual representation
of some form, the reader is made aware of information that they would not have originally
obtained through the written text alone.
Monday, September 17, 2012
9-17-12 Porter Assignment
Greg Warman
9-17-12
English 1510
James E. Porter
Assignment
Summary:
In
James E. Porter’s article, “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community,” he
argues the point that our culture holds two common conceptions about writing:
1) writing must be original, and 2) if a writer borrows ideas from another
writer without acknowledging them, it’s plagiarism. Porter then explains how
these common conceptions are actually misconceptions, because of his theory of
Intertextuality. Intertextuality, in
Porter’s words, is the idea that all texts contain “traces” of other texts
making it that no text can be created without drawing something from some other
text. Basically, James’ article is challenging the common idea that writers are
autonomous.
Synthesis:
Porter’s
argument in this article is very controversial.
With the claims he makes about Intertextuality, his writing greatly
contradicts that of Elbow. Elbow talks
about how using voice can help personalize your writing and give it an original
context. But Porter says that no matter
what or how you write, you’re basically deriving, one way or another, your
words and writing from a writing of someone else.
Reflection:
Porter
is bringing up a valid point with his argument about Intertextuality. What the real issue is with the idea of
Intertextuality is whether or not the writer is consciously creating their own
writing out of someone else’s. For
example, a writer that comes up with a new writing about a common topic may
exploit certain points or facts that have already been established in other
writings. But if this writer had written
their paper without reading the other writing, their work should still be
considered original. I do agree with his idea of culture and environment
inspiring our writing. The article in general was extremely drawn out and dry
and I found it very hard to sit down and read.
QDJ Answers:
4) I’ve always
judged a reading by how it personally affects me as I read it and once I’ve
finished reading it, not how the people around me feel about it. My writings
have always been based on a certain format about a certain subject. My writings have been graded on how well I
incorporated information along with using correct grammar and citing
sources. Usually the evaluation focuses
more on grammatical structure than the actual information I’ve inserted into my
writing.
5) His paper
both hurts and helps his argument in Intertextuality. If he is correct about it being true, then
indeed, his paper is written by an autonomous author. This reflects the idea that Intertextuality
is correct. But with that being said,
Porter can’t say that the idea of Intertextuality was his idea or that his
paper is original because the whole purpose of his paper is saying how no
writing is original due to the fact that the writing contains something from a
past writing.
AEI Answers:
2) If Porter’s
theory is correct, there would be no working way of re-writing the plagiarism
policy. The only way one could re-write
it would be to change the policy to saying “if you KNOWINGLY use/copy/quote
someone in your writing, you must cite them.” Even this would leave a gray area
as to whether or not you can prove the student knowingly copied another writer
or if they coincidently said exactly what someone else had already said in a
previous writing as Porter’s theory about intertextuality explains.
Meta Moment:
Porter’s
theory opened my eyes about how a lot of writers’ work may indeed be branched
off of what others have already written before, but I do not agree that this
should take away the originality of their work.
The integrity of the writer expressing their own ideas in the paper is
enough to declare their work original even if it does bare resemblance to past
writings stating the same ideas.
9-17-12 Porter IWA
Greg Warman
9-17-12
English 1510
Informal Writing
Assignment – James E. Porter
After reading the article
“Intertextuality and the Discourse Community,” I had an understanding of the
point Porter was trying to get across. I
do agree that almost anything one writes today has some aspects or underlying
resemblance to another piece of writing that has already taken place. This explains his idea of intertextuality in
a nut shell. Basically, all texts
contain some traces of other texts, resulting in no text ever being completely
original and not containing some idea from another text.
Porter’s argument of “intertextuality”
can be found abundantly in research papers.
The research papers are based off of research. This research involved citing and quoting
research done by others, therefore the newly created research paper holds ideas
and information from a previous writing.
This is how Porter’s idea of nothing is original came about. Anything you say, write, do, or technically
think, someone, somewhere, somehow has already done it.
Another example of Porter’s theory
is the use of intertextuality in the media.
In many parody films, movies, and tv shows, it’s very common to see them
poke fun of common popular culture and society.
Whether it is an event, another movie, another show, or even just a
character from a different show, by using them in their own show, it’s an
active example of intertextuality. The parody show/movie is taking something
else and putting it in their own show/movie.
All in all, Porter’s explanation of nothing
ever technically being original is in most parts true. There can virtually always be something in a
writing, movie, tv show, or just a plain idea that can be found in some other
writing, movie, tv show, or idea.
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