Spring Semester 2008

Spring semester 2008 has been a long technology filled semester. English 207 has aided in my writing progress and has helped me recognize the areas of writing I needed to improve. Technology has been a huge part of this course. This course has introduced me to blooger.com and wordpress.com, two sites in which I never knew existed. Tbese sites were great for posting thoughts about readings and the various papers we have written throughout the semester.

The project that I found to be the most interesting and fun to do was the advertisement on Photoshop. Photoshop is a difficult software program to use, but this class brought people in to teach us the specifics of it and allowed us to create a personalized ad. I also, enjoyed doing this because I have a lot of knowledge about advertising and marketing. I was extremely happy to use the skills that I have gained from a variety of marketing classes and implement them into this specific advertisement.

This class has also allowed me to reflect on how technology has changed over the 23 years I have been alive. It was great to recoginze the different technologies I have used over the years and compare to recent new innovations.

Paper Proposal

The research proposal can be a very important portion of a research paper. The research proposal helps a person narrow down a topic within their topic. For example, I want to write about ethics in business, but that is too board of a cateogy. In order to narrow this down, I have decided to focus on one specific business, Abercrombie and Fitch. Abercrombie has violated the code of ethics and the organization is within my peer discourse community. In the paper proposal, the reseach that we have done so far should be include. The annotated bibliography is crucial for this portion and it is very important that this step has been completed. By sorting out the research in the paper proposal to the topic that has been narrowed down will help "weed out" the irrelevant sources. Finally, the last main purpose to include is to develop a clear concsie thesis statement to use for the research paper. The thesis statement will being everything in the paper together and keep the writer on a clear track.

Also, in the paper proposal discussing the research method used for the paper will aid your understanding of why you did the research that you did. The methods can either be primary or secondary research. Primary research includes surveys, interviews, or focus groups while secondary research is the research done by other researchers. For example, articles from newspapers, the internet, or scholarly journals.

An important feature to keep in mind is to identify the problem you are dealing with and then actualize the solution in the end. The researcher needs to conclude on the research found or else the research done is unimportant the conclsusions could be false.

ReSeArCh PaPeR

How to approach a research paper is the question. A good way to start a research paper is to get a piece of paper and begin writing down all of the discourse communities you belong to. I like to make a "spider web" of ideas. I began by writing down marketing, communication, and spanish. I placed circles all around them and started branching ideas out of each one. I thought about controversial issues facing each topic then begin thinking about careers within each one. Next, I looked at all the ideas and asked myself 2 questions: Will I have enough information to do this topic? and will this topic be interesting and benefit me? This helped me settle on the idea of ethics in business. The hard part was picking which company I would focus on. I began researching google for companies that have violated some sort of code of ethics in their business. I was trying to decide between Coca Cola, ATT, or Abercrombie and Fitch. I choose to focus on Abercrombie because it is a popular store within my peers and I thought it would be the most interesting.

Research is the next portion. In the Faigly readings, he discusses how to know if an online source is a credible source. The tips he gives are look to see when the page was last updated, does the page have and author, and finally do they use other credible sources on their page. I found these tips to be very useful when I was looking for sources for the annotated bibliography. I want my research to be credible and I do not want to use any false facts.

Through my research, I hope to gain a better understanding on the ethics of business. I plan on joining the business world very very soon and it is important to know good business practices. The Abercrombie case focuses on discrimination and racism. Personally, being a women I could be discriminated in the business world. By studying this I can become more educated on diversity in business.

Fianlly, the concerns I have with the research project is dividing my time evenly between this paper and my brand redesigning project for marketing. Both of these projects are time consuming and important. I will need to divide my attention to each of them proportionately. I know if I keep on the deadlines, they will not be a problem. Other than that, I have no worries on accomplishing the research paper.

"Support, Reasoning, and Persausion"

Persausion relies on the need of support and reasoning. When using persausion it is important to keep in mind that the support and reasoning need to be credible, while appealing to the target audience. In the reading about support, reasoning, and persausion suggests 11 different styles of persausion including relying on examples, rely on maxims, trusims, and conventional wisdon, and rely on associations. These are just 3 of the 11 different styles Liab offers, but even looking at the 3 we can see that relying on what people already know is very important. In a way, it is making the familiar unfamiliar. A beneficial example about making the familiar unfamilar, in which I learned in a marketing class, is Absolute Vodka. Absolut Vodka is a vodka imported from sweeden. The bottle shape and advertisements are what make the vodka unique. Each advertisement takes the bottle (the familiar shape) and places it in different atmospheres like for Christmas the bottle was in a snowy field and the reindeers antlers were shaped as the bottle Also, the ad is given a slogan for example, "Absolut Reindeer." The bottle was familiar but was given a unique twist with the way it was positioned in the ad. The persuasion to buy the vodka while the reasoning and support is that this product is the same as others, but relies on the association of what people know but made unfamiliar.

In the reading, Liab makes an important statement, he says in regards to reasoning and identification, "It needs both proof and persausion, both evidence and vision, both content and form, both data and a conceptual framework." Persuasion needs its proof on way someone should either do something or buy a a product. Either way the item needs to be different and provide a vaild arguement. The content needs to be credible and be reasonable.

Technology and Identity

How does technology influence our identity? Nancy Hass pointed out in her article, "In your facebook.com," that people, mainly college students, try to portray themselves through different categories. First I would like to talk about facebook.com. The Facebook is a networking webiste in which you can keep up with old friends or befriend the new people you meet in class. By becoming friends with someone on facebook, they can have access to your personal page. The things on your page such as your dislikes/likes, groups, and all of your actions done on the site will be visibile to everyone you are friends with. Hass says in the article, "These communities can be postive or negative." This is relvent to what you put on your page becuase what a person puts on their page will reflect a positive or negative image of the person. The facebook member needs to keep in mind what they put on their page can come back and bit them in the butt, in a sense. Everyone will be able to see what they aredoing including future employers. If the person page portrays themselves as always drinking beer, partying, and have inappropriate sayings on it labels them negatively.

Technology does influnce our identity. Hass says "Facebook illumintes the changing nature of public and private identity." The internet allows people to voice their private thoughts to the public. Many people seem to feel more open about how they feel when they writting on either facebook or another blogging site. The private is now public. Technology is ever changing, and more and more people find ways to access a persons private profile, so all in all a person needs to think before they post certain things about themselves.

What is an effective website?

What is an effective website? Faigley says there are three components that make an effective website. They are credible, usually appealing, and fast to upload. I agree with this because I feel if a website is unorganized makes searching for the information you need difficult. The purpose of the website should be to be credible while persuading the website visitors. The colors are also very important because you do not want too many colors so you do no overwhelm visitors. The colors hould be warm and inviting like orange and greens. The site should have some whitespace to give the visitors eyes a break.

I feel that amazon.com is a great website. It is secured, persuasive, easy to use, and is organized. They do not use too manyt colors and is appealing to its target audience. Also, I believe that abercrombieandfitch.com is an awesome website because it is easy to use and has unique features such as a "online changing room" where you can put different articles of clothing together to make outfits. It also features an online shopping cart where you can put items you wish to buy in the future or now. The site is very organzied too. At the top of the page you can choose men or women and if you want t-shirts, jeans, or accessories. It is very appealing to its target audience.

Analyzing Images and Visual Texts

Analyzing images and visual texts can be ambiguous in meaning depending on who is looking at the image. What i belive the meaning of the image to be could be completely different from another person because of either my gender or even race. Gender and race can play a role in the way people see images because women find that a bloody image is gross and unappealing while some men would think that the ad is powerful and cool. In Faigley, he discusses the structure of a SUV vs a Mini Van. The two vehicles represent two different messages. the mini van represents and gives more of family vehicle and promotes safety. The SUV is more sporty, but good for families.

When looking at an image the colors can represent different meanings. For example, if the SUV was orange, it would represent a cozy and comfortable vehicle while a red SUV could mean powerful and fast.

Advertisement

Time management is the key to any project or assignment. I think it is important to keep in my mind the due date of the given task because you do not want to put it off to the last minute. In the advertisement assignment, I feel the time managemet is a little more difficult. The project would be easier for me to manage if I had the photoshop on my computer at home. I think it would have been easier to manage if we could have chosen the program to use. Overall, I have enjoyed getting to know how to use Adobe Photoshop because it is very different. It is a mixture between the paint program, photo studio, and microsoft word. I really enjoyed using the different elements photoshop offered like the different textures you could use on the photo. The advertiisement I created was for a fragance called Pure Beauty. I feel that with the help of photoshop it is progressing well. I used a flower for the background but used a different texture to make it look more of oil pastels, but also used some constrasting to make the picture stand out more. As Faigly said in the reading, it is important to have constrast and consistency in the advertisement. This kinda goes along with time management because if you wait til the last minute to finish up the ad, you will have no time to go back and make sure that everything is consistent in the ad; especially the font, font size, and color.


It has been a relief that we have had time to work on the project in class because it is hard to find time to go to campus and work on the ad at either the tech building or library.

Reflection of Technology

The status of technology is ever changing. Every year the computers we use, cell phones we talk on, and the televisions we watch our favorite programs on are constantly updating their status. Their statuses change by either making them more efficient and quick, the way it looks, or even the quality of the picture it omits. The techno-biography assignment has helped me show down and look back on how technology in my life has changed over years. Technology was in my life before I even knew what the word meant and it amazes me how inventions of 23 years ago have advanced or do not even exist anymore due to new and improved innovations. The world is so fast paced we do not even realize or appreciate the innovations that come in and out of our lives. For example, in my technology narrative I mention three different pieces of technology that have ultimately affected the way I think about technology. They are a hand held computer, my family's first computer with dial-up Internet, and the cell phone. These innovations have been very important factors in my life with technology.

The peer reviews workshop last Friday, has helped me not only with some positive criticism, but also in remembering other technologies of the past. I enjoyed reading what others wrote and giving them feedback about their papers. One item of technology that I have not thought about in years, Sarah had wrote about it in hers, was the "Dear Diary." I was so excited to read about it because I had one too and we were able to discuss what we wrote in them and the secrets we kept in them, but also how we loved the personal touch of written diaries.

The bio-technology reflection has been beneficial to me because I can now look at all the technology in my life right now and say wow technology has seriously evolved!

Discourse Communities

Discourse communities are groups of people with goals and shared interests that communicate through various channels like language or writing. The groups of people may share similar beliefs, religion, political views, music taste, or an interest in basketball. The term discourse community is not limited to just one group of people. In Russell's essay he discusses how a modern university exists because of each discourse community that exists within the university. Each community overlaps with each and in a way share a common goal of receiving an education from the university. Although Russells' example was good, I really like how Klass explained discourse communities in her essay. In her essay, she talks about being in the medical profession and all of the abbreviations they use for long medical terms. I found it very interesting that LOL means "little old lady." If I was in the hospital and heard this I would have interpreted it as "laughing out loud" because I am part of the discourse community online AIM (instant messaging). In each community could have different meanings for words and abbreviations. Also, the language of discourse communities is not just limited to professions and internet terms. The business world, education, and religions all have different meaning for different words.
I do believe that dicouse community is a loosely defined term, but I can say that I am part of the university community, and myspace/thefacebook communities. I am also part of many more to be named in the future.