Coaches Can Read Too

Establishing the Territory-
When establishing a territory for a discourse community discussion, it's important to give a brief introduction into the background of how the discourse community operates. For Sean Branick, his discourse community is within himself and other football coaches.  He states that the coaches he works with come from everyday guys to "legends".  For me, when I introduce my topic of executive councils within a sorority, there isn't much background I can discuss other than just some basic terms and regulations on how we operate.

Establishing a Niche-
I looked back on what Swales described this section as and it's when an author "makes a claim or says their purpose".  To me this means what they are trying to convey as far as a message goes regarding their discourse community.  In this case, it's Branick and other football coaches.  He states that there is a lot of behind the scenes things that coaches go through in order to make them sucessful and it is often overlooked.  Going into my ethnography, the main topic of discussion is authority. It's totally overlooked how strict a sorority operates and being the voice of authority over women the same age as you is extremely stressful.  It also leads into the stereotypical discussion of how many may think a sorority is only about partying, when I know first hand, a social event cannot happen without careful revision and planning form myself and advisors.

Occupying a Niche-
Here in this section, is where the research question is to be explained and drawn out with a claim.  Branick does this by talking about attributes necessary to be a good football coach.  All this takes place in the last paragraph of the introduction.

Learning to Serve

Through reading Tony Mirabelli's article surrounding the topic of restaurant management, his main research question is defined through the quote "what is a menu and what does it mean to have a literate understanding of one."  Reading a menu in a restaurant is different for the customers than it is actual staff.  There is more to it because it's a literate function within that discourse community.  It's the major form of textual interaction through restaurant employees and customers they are serving.  He wants to understand the source it seems like.

He went about collecting his data through being an actual waiter at the restaurant so he could have first hand experiences with interaction and behaviors between customers and staff.  Through the data he collected, he measured customer participation, interaction dates, he had field notes he took between serving and also interviewed individual customers. The data he did collect helps to explain that a menu is more than just a means by which you order food.  It's it's own genre.  A lot goes into making a menu and if its difficult to read, it ruins the whole aspect of a restaurant and the customer's satisfaction. The conversation a customer has with the staff is the whole point of how a restaurant is suppose to function.  It's hugely important and without it, communication fails and lacks.

Identity, Authority and Learning to Write in New Work Places

In the article, "Identity, Authority and Learning to Write in New Work Places", Elizabeth Wardle talks about three techniques people use to join new communities to have a sense of belonging.  She describes these new members as "newcomers" and the three ways they try to belong to a community are by engagement, imagination and alignment.  Engagement is probably the most important out of the three, where a newcomer becomes familiar with their new discourse community by engaging with older members of the community.  It is a sense of respect and it also makes the newcomers come out of their shells and force them to prove themselves to the community.  An example of this for me might be, new members of my sorority coming to the house and getting to know the in-house women.  The sophomores act as their big sisses so they get to know them very well, but they never have a chance to really bond with us, the juniors so we always welcome them if they want to stop by and talk.  It shows us they're in our sorority for the right reasons and that they're also friendly girls.

The second way newcomers become accepted into a discourse community is through imagination.  Wardle explains that imagination expands experiences you partake in and also the way you conduct yourself as a person.  It makes for a well-rounded person and you also create new images of the world around you.  Without imagination the world might be very close-minded so the members of the discourse community look for someone creative.  If you aren't imaginative, I don't think you would even think about joining a new one. An example I can think of with this, was when I first went out of my executive board position of event planning.  It is the most demanding for being creative and having an imagination.  It was scary thinking I would be taking the shoes of another member, but with my hard work and determination, I used imagination to help me make decisions and make events much more fun.  I got a lot of praise and no longer felt that I wasn't going to be a good predecesor.

And lastly, Wardle says the third way to become accepted by a discourse community is through alignment.  Alignment is sort of like becoming knowledgable about how the community works and accepting that.  It's like following the rules almost.  When a member first joins a discourse community, the must align their old ways with the new ways of how the group works.  The best example of this for me was when I was a new member.  I had no idea a sorority did so many things and operated so intensely.  I changed a lot about my work ethic (in a positive way) and point of view of everything.  I did all this so I could have a smooth transition of being initiated and I also wanted all my new sisters to like me.

Any discourse community faces these three ways newcomers come about.  Everyone is a newcomer at some point.  Some never make it because they don't approach a community the correct way, and some do and flourish and become the next leaders.  It all depends on whether or not they were meant to be apart of it or not.

Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice

In Ann M. Johns' article, "Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice", she discusses the difference between John Swales article and James Gee's articles' opinions of discourse communities.  Swales main argument is that being involved in a discourse community doesn't necessarily mean that you belong.  Gee's main argument is that the home is a dominant discourse to everyone unless people don't have a home.  If they don't have a home they make a dominant discourse community through "mushfake". While keeping these all in mind, Johns goes into detail about four main concepts these writers forget to mention.  Cost of affiliation, issues of authority, conventions/anti-conventionalism and dialogue and critique.  Cost of affiliation mainly discusses the concept of how everyone grows up and goes to school.  When they attend school, they find new discourse communities but never have to truly leave their dominant one of their family. Issues authority is the idea that each group has rules and guidelines.  For each group there will always be "authoritive utterances that set the tone" of how it's supposed to operate.  Whether it just be within the family household or a government agency.  There are natural born leaders everywhere.  Without a dominant force a group cannot flourish.  The third thing Johns talks about is conventions and anti-conventionalism.  While this was a hard concept for me to truly understand, what I believe she means is each group has different roles and they are constantly changing as time moves on.  The titles may slightly change, but group members cannot be forever.  However, the concrete rules are usually laid and are often followed.  But there will always be people with anti-conventionalistic ideas.  Willing to break those common conventions set by a discourse community.  The last thing she talks about is dialogue & critique.  A commonality amongst Swales, Gee and Johns.

Malcom X & Sherman Alexie

In Malcom X's article, "Learning to Read" and Sherman Alexie's article, "Superman Me", they discuss how race, class and status affected the opportunities they were given to learn to read and write.  Each is similar in their own way, but very different.  The biggest difference is that they learned to read and write at different points in their life.  Both being minorities, but Malcolm X taught himself how to read while he was in jail.  He was also much older than when you think of a typical age of a child today learning to read and write.  He was an adult.  It's hard enough being an adult and having all the tools necessary to achieve becoming literate today, so being an adult minority in prison, must have been overwhelmingly complicated.  Sherman Alexie on the other hand, taught himself how to read by picking up anything he could get his hands on by the time he was three.  He did not have the privledge of public schooling since he was Latin American and growing up in a time where this generally was not accepted.  As a result he taught himself to read by picking up comic books, automobile manuals and even newspapers.  Both men did not have the ends to make means meet as far as becoming literate goes, but with perserverence and steady dedication these men helped themselves do something incredible.  Something we take advantage of day in and day out.

Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics

James Paul Gee's article, "Literacy, Discourse and Linguistics" talks about the tests and gates primary discourse communities have towards secondary discourse communities.  These tests often see if a person is native or non-native to their community.  This can be tested by showing that you are in the know about what's going on.  If you're not a part of the primary discourse community, and you fail to pass the test then that community keeps it's gates up and does not have to share anything with you.  But, primary discourse communities are often affected by secondary ones.   An example I can think of easily is my sorority house being the primary source and Facebook being the secondary.  We choose what we put on there, but the linguistics in which the way people communicate on Facebook, rubs off on us.  However, we have the power to not have to have a Facebook, or post on peoples' walls or even look at their pictures.  But since Facebook is such a popular secondary discourse community, we all feel the need to participate and it changes the way we talk to each other, and also what we talk about.

The Concept of the Discourse Community

1. A discourse community has a broadly agreed set of common public goals
The common public goals are known intentions amongst a community, whether it be said/written or just automatically known.  It's what the discourse community plans to do and strive for.  It's almost like their own known agenda amongst themselves where other communities do not know about.  An example of this for me would be, being apart of my sorority's executive council.  Each position has an electronic handbook online describing all the measures each position should take regarding what they are in charge of.  It also comes with a set of policies and rules that must be heavily followed for the safety of the chapter.


2. A discourse community has mechanisms of intercommunication among its members
Swales describes a language known to just a discourse community and its specific members.  It's a way they communicate with one another, that outside sources may not understand.  The best example of this for me is definitely ballet.  I wrote about this a lot in my literacy narrative.  We have a lot of slang and formal terms that others don't understand.


3.  A discourse community uses its participatory mechanisms primarily to provide information and feedback
To me, Swales is expressing that the way to receive feedback about ones' discourse community has to come from outside sources or members within itself.  Outside sources I think point out bring a sense of reality to a group and being a member of a community helps you strive to better yourselves or maybe even other people you're intending to help.  Working at Victoria's Secret is a very challenging social environment, where sales goals are pushed and each customer is required to have the best customer service they've ever had and to expect it each time they enter the store.  As employees we are trained all the time on tactics and made aware of our sales data monthly and how we can change some things about it.


4.  A discourse community utilizes and hence possesses one or more genres in the communicative furtherance of its aims
Swales is trying to communicate that within every discourse community there are roles and functions that must be worked out.  These roles are constantly changing to keep the community progressing.  I think the best example for this is family.  Everyone has one, and roles constantly begin to change.  When I was younger it was me and my four boy older cousins.  Now the youngest are my cousins kids and everyone is waiting on me to get married.  It's a scary thought, but exciting also.


5.  In addition to owning genres, a discourse community has acquired some specific lexis
This is a little more challenging to understand, but what I think Swales tries to convery is the specific terms and way of talking to one another in a discourse community can vary from group to group.  At work at VS, we use terms to communicate to each other that customers usually don't understand.  Limited Brands in general is a very term specific business, so knowing the terms is key to success.  It sort of allows us to be like a secret society and create our own unique success apart from other companies.  Words and phrases such as BWC, CSL, excellent customer service, brand ambassador...all may leave some confused.


6.  A discourse community has a threshold level of members with a suitable degree of relevant content and discoursal expertise
Lastly, Swales touches base on the natural hierarchy that takes place in a discourse community.  People sit on different levels of importance and leadership, whether they be elected or it's a natural sense of entitlement, we always have leaders.  At school here, students are overseen by professors who are overseen by their boss, who are overseen by a more specific boss and then overseen by the dean or president.  Yet it's interesting because within smaller discourse communities such as sororities, fraternities, groups on campus, we hold each other accountable and form our own leadership positions amongst each other.

From Pencils to Pixels

"From Pencils to Pixels" by Dennis Baron, was an irritating read to say the least.  I thought he was pompous and ignorant for criticizing something so influential in this society today.  The computer has been the most influential piece of technology that has been created in the 21st century and I feel like Baron takes such a negative stand point on it affecting the way he writes. While I can't be certain that pencil and paper forms of writing will never go away as we push towards a more technological future, I can assure you that any route taken is for the good of being able to keep up with where the future is headed.  I could definitely see handwriting fizzling out in the upcoming hundreds of years just due to the ease and integration of smaller more handy devices such as the iPad.  I think handwriting is extremely necessary and useful however, but it's definitely outdated in even this day and time if you really think about it.  The only time I ever write anymore on paper is if I am making a to-do list or jotting down notes from class.  All my drafts and ideas start usually in a Word document.  "...the writing practices I had been engaged in regularly since the age of four, now seemed to overwhelm and constrict me, and I longed for the flexibility of digitized text" Baron quotes.  It is sad to think that that did happen to him, but I don't think if I sat down to write on paper I would be that held back from my thinking processes and I know a lot of others who would feel the same.  The computer didn't just invent itself, humans did, and since it is so mainstream today, I don't see all the harm in it being more convenient.  That's the purpose of life, is always expanding and stretching the horizons of what we already know to better the generations of tomorrow.  Not to be nostalgic about the past.  The past should be honored, but we naturally move forward.

The Future of Literacy

The case study I felt like I connected with the most in The Future of Literacy was Brittney Moraski.  The other stories talked a lot about their parents being restrictive with their inquisitiveness about other lieracies, while this one showed her parents ability to support her in her endeavor to excel on the computer.  From a young age, I can't say I was very fond of reading like Moraski, but I was good at it.  I could read quickly and comprehend everything as well.  When the computer first came out, I was super intrigued by everything you could do on it and we had a desktop at home ever since I could remember.  I taught myself skills really, really young around age 11 such as HTML and CSS because I was super interested in creating a website.  I got a lot of praise from my parents but mostly from my cousin who was in college at the time at Iowa State studying to be a computer engineer.  His opinion mattered way more to me and to see him truly impressed was such a good feeling.  I think I felt connected to Moraski the most due to family support she seemed to receive.  Danielle DeVoss seemed as if her parents weren't all for her leaning towards a more computer driven lifestyle but more, "conventional academic pursuits".  And  with the study of Joseph Johansen, I felt like he was raised much more strictly with his religion and beliefs than me.  I went to church every sunday and even sang in the choir, but his religion seemed to hold his parents back from allowing him to pursue truly what he wanted.  I'm glad that I had so much family support to be able to explore the computer and how it operated.  It may not be the most important interest in my life, but it was so helpful. I am on my computer a lot during the day so if my parents had been a little more skeptical about allowing me to explore, I wouldn't feel such an ease navigating the internet and a computer today.

Sponsors of Literacy

I attended 3 different types of schools for elementary, middle and high school.  In each, I learned a lot, but each sponsor looking back put their stress on different parts of literacy.  I attended a public school for k-5 where I learned all my basics.  Each year I felt was so different from the next, but when I reached 4th and 5th grade, I had the option to be in the "gifted and talented" program.  A class taught by the same teacher, in the same room, with 4th and 5th graders for two years.  I was pushed to excel and I did.  At this point however, other classrooms disliked ours and I was constantly treated rudely by others.  Being in that class though had such a huge impact and I left being able to read and write and actually analyze things so much better than if I had stayed in the normal classes.  Middle school, I attended a private school.  It was small, with just 18 kids in my class. It was a different type of sponsor as well.  It was even more personal therefore I felt like I took a lot out of my learning experiences in middle school.  It was probably my most influential sponsor I had.  In high school, moved suburbs and attended a public high school which had 400 kids in my class and 1600 in the school.  My personal sponsors had left, and I had to open myself up to the high pace of all different types of people.  Everyone was on completely different literacy levels in the school it felt like, but Worthington was one of Ohio's best school systems.  We weren't allowed to do class rank because the average GPA was so high, and we also had no class valedictorians.  Living in the fast paced, competitive time, it really allowed me to use my literacy techniques from past years to develop the new.

I not only attended school and consider that apart of what I am literate with, I also feel like my parents, grandparents, friends, social media and ballet effected me to be able to adapt and understand when to use certain type of literacies.  My grandma especially taught me a lot of manners and I utilize those when I am in certain situations.  I'd say I am literate with understanding when to be proper/polite and when I can relax.  And also the most interesting sponsor would be ballet.  It has it's own everything, language, expectations, slang, technologies.  It's learning to speak and understand things that outside people looking in have no idea about.  Being literate in something not everyone understands is was makes us unique.  But education through school is the most important sponsor, because without that, I wouldn't even be able to understand my ballet sponsor or any other secondary place.

Project 2: The Wikipedia Reflection Essay

Creating, or in my case, editing a Wikipedia article, has changed the way I look at Wikipedia’s credibility.  There are so many functions set up on that website that others often overlook.  Contrary to what people think, it’s nearly impossible to make anything up, or put anything on a page that isn’t backed up by a very reputable source.  Teachers and professors often tell students to not utilize Wikipedia as a reference, but truth is, if you want to get the gist of a topic, it would be my first stop on the internet. Noah Cohem writes in his New York Times article , “once routinely questioned about its reliability — what do you mean, anyone can edit it? — the site is now used every month by upwards of 400 million people worldwide.” I never would have agreed with this four weeks ago, but seeing how Wikipedia operates has definitely caused the site to gain my respect and intrigue.

When we were told we would be creating our own Wikipedia article, I thought it sounded very interesting because I would be making something that could possibly stick on the internet forever.  Sure, we’ve all made blogs and websites now and again, but do those ever come up first thing in a good search? The answer to that would be no.  I felt pretty empowered about this whole project so I knew I wanted to do a topic that interested me.  I’d always been fascinated by paranormal stories and old abandoned buildings.  They just hold so much more of a story than anyone could ever see, so a recent trip to The Ridges, brought me upon my first proposed topic of the Tuberculosis Ward.  Driving up the hill in the back of The Ridges gave me chills as I looked at what was in front of me.  I was unsuspecting that, that was where the TB Ward stood so I drove up closer and walked around with my friend for awhile.  When we left, we went home and tried to look up information on tours or any information at all regarding history or factual stories about the facility.  All that was written on the internet were fan blogs of people who visited old “haunted” buildings as a hobby and told stories about them with their own opinions and photos.  I decided to visit the archives at the local library to really be able to find useful information and “dig up” as much of the history as I could.

The man working in the archives happened to work for the Mahn Center for archives for a very long time and he was heavily involved with research regarding the old state hospital.  I told him that I specifically wanted to know history about the Tubercular Ward, and he said that they really only had a page or two and it wouldn’t be anything useful.  When he showed me the rest of the archives with photocopies and pictures regarding the facility as a whole, I knew I had to know more.

Getting permission to revise an already existing article was really interesting and laid the pressure on a lot more.  The original article was created years ago and had been edited over a hundred times already.  I felt as if an audience was watching me as I wrote down the facts  that I pulled out of the archives.  I looked over the edits made in past revisions and that helped me decide on whether or not certain edits that I wrote would fall under the cause for deletion .  Facts that could not be proven true were taken down such as “deleted statement that Haerlin was a student of Olmsted. No evidence he was.” And “The Kennedy Museum is a different building that was restored that used to be part of the hospital. The Athens Asylum is a different building, in disrepair. Please find a new pic of the actual building.” I made sure to try and cite my sources correctly even though it was difficult with the files I was working with.

The Discussion Board also helped me decide what was acceptable to write on my page as far as keeping a neutral tone.  Someone had previously written, “The old trees surrounding the original structures are majestic in their timeless beauty.”  While that statement sounds really nice and would fit well in a book maybe, it didn’t fit with Wikipedia’s neutral point of view, or “npov”.  So, I made sure to leave out too many descriptive unnecessary adjectives.  Another way I used the Discussion Board was to help answer people’s questions.  I felt I had a huge advantage with contributing to that page because the State Hospital was located right down the road, and I had primary sources within the library.  Someone had previously asked how many square feet the facility took up, so I dug through the entire plot plans and there were records circa 1960, stating how much square footage the hospital truly took up.

Writing a Wikipedia article was unlike anything I have ever written before. I knew I would “address the essential characteristsics of effective composing: planning, drafting, aligning, revising and monitoring” as Tierney and Pearson described in their article,  “Toward a Composing Article of Reading” (176).  I planned out how I wanted the page to look by looking at what was already on there, and deciding if I needed to take anything down.  Then I posed questions for myself on a sheet of paper, that I wanted to be answered on the Wikipedia article when it was done.  I also knew I wanted to have credible sources for the article so I went to the archives to pull records and photocopies of plot plans. I drafted out my first submission, then saved and looked at my page to make corrections to the alignment.  While revising the article, I found myself going over it with a fine tooth comb.  The pressure I had previously talked about felt so real saving something that was live on the internet.  I now still check back on my article to monitor and see if anyone has stopped by to edit anything or discredit my hard work.

What made Wikipedia seem so different from anything I had written before is that fact that Wikipedia brings researched information and formality, to a heightened sense of excitement, due to the fact that it makes writing social.  We don’t all have access to the best resources or references, so when things are published to the internet, you’re seeing one person’s point of view, of what makes something notable, interesting and what should be shared with the world.  On Wikipedia, you get a collaboration of works, other’s stories and writing styles.  You can see where everyone is coming from and use the edit and discussion board topics to communicate with one another on how to better the article.  This sort of makes Wikipedia like a live revision that never stops.  Wikipedia doesn’t ask for a final draft.  It allows through history and time, for each article to keep expanding to it’s fullest.  Sure, some articles take longer than others to get the so-called “facelifts” they deserve, but nevertheless, an article submitted on Wikipedia is always open to more facts and references provided for the subjects.

Through all this, I’ve realized Wikipedia is changing the way people can understand information about a multtitude topics.  I still don’t think teachers and professors want to see Wikipedia as a cited source in an essay, however, I would give Wikipedia much more credit than it receives.  I don’t think sites like Wikipedia will totally abandon the constructs of traditional writing, because in writing in a neutral point of view is a task that proves to be quite challenging to some, and if you have no background or baseboard to start from, they how can you expect to create an article on a social encyclopedia, where other authors and readers can take you seriously?  I don’t think Wikipedia completely alters established methods of writing, it just tweaks it and makes it something exciting for this generation to explore and play with.  It should be interesting to see if Wikipedia can shy away from having such a bad reputation.

Tierney, Robert J. Pearson, David P.  “ Toward a Composing Model of Reading” Writing About Writing. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs.  Boston, MA.  Bedford/St.Martins,  2011.  174-190.

Shitty First Drafts

Anne Lamont uses saracasm and humor in her article, "Shitty First Drafts" to get the point across that first drafts don't always have to make that much sense.  She insists they should be jumbled full of whatever we want and whatever comes out in the thought process.  I understand where she's coming from with this and I'd say I agree with her about 25%.

While I agree first drafts should never be perfect, they should be to the point where you as the writer think you've done a great job conveying the message.  Often times, if a first draft is asked for, then that must mean someone will be looking over what you've written and if they don't understand hardly anything you wrote, then how can they help you better your paper?  There at least has to be that effort put into a first draft where you as the author feels happy with it, and can reach out to others to make sure they agree with what you wrote.  I know for example there are always times I get stuck on word choice, where the word I want to use is on the tip of my tongue, but I just can't figure it out, and someone who peer reviews my paper helps me how and suggests a different word to use.

I usually put the most effort into my first draft because it's the entirety of my paper, and I'm not going to waste someone's time reading something that's hard for them to understand in the first place.

Tuning, Trying and Training Texts

Barbara Tomlinson, writer of, "Tuning, Trying and Training Texts", describes eight different metaphors authors use to revise their works.  If I had to pick some that best described how I revise a paper, I would choose sewing and tailoring and fixing things.  Revising is the second most important part to writing anything, next to actually writing something.  It allows you to go back through and really allow the paper's fluidity to flow.  When I edit a paper, I don't usually sit down and take things out, I rework sentences or even rearrange paragraphs so that the message isn't only conveyed to me as the author, but to the audience I am trying to reach.

With Wikipedia revising, I think it is so important to be able to look at the "View History" and see what didn't work in the past.  For example, since I was editing a previously created page, the first thing I did was look at the history of edits.  I made sure I took mental notes not to use fluffy words to draw out descriptions of the buildings and to also be able to back my facts up.  A lot of sentences had to be taken down because there was no proof of it.  So if you can look at the "View History" before editing a page, you can save yourself the time and effort of writing something they will just end up taking down.

As far as the discussion tabs go, I used the discussion tab on my page to answer some questions people would like to know as far as the total square feet of the facility.  I went through the records and pulled a photocopied annual report stating the total square footage circa the 1960's.  I felt like I had accomplished something, and hopefully whoever was wondering will notice that there is factual evidence for the total square feet.

My Wikipedia Article

Athens Lunatic Asylum

Toward a Composing Model of Reading

Everytime I sit down to write something I self-consciously utilize the five steps that Tierney and Pearson talk about in their article, "Toward a Composing Model of Reading".  From a young age, you're taught how to plan and set up a message and purpose you're trying to convey.  I remember choosing a topic and then making web diagrams from there with smaller topics to back up my main idea.  I remember the drafting process of using my peers for help and getting others' opinions on how my message sounded to a bigger audience.  Aligning is a concept where I am not sure I see the difference from revising, but with revising, I would go back over my drafts with a fine toothed comb and make sure that everything in the paper ultimately tied together.  Monitoring was always nice to receive a paper back with positive feedback and use the critical feedback to better my other papers I wrote down the road.

Regarding this Wikipedia article, I definitely can now look back and see how I used all five of these techniques.  I wanted to do something local within Athens and had recently been taken up to The Ridges so, I thought about doing something particularly on the Tuberculosis Ward because it was the only building that remained unrennovated.  I had also heard so many interesting stories about that building in particular, I thought for sure I would be able to find information on it.  The internet provided no legitimate sources towards the history of the grounds so I thought I would try something new and go to the archives in the library.  When the man told me they had hardly anything on that ward, I had to change up my tactics and finally decided on revamping the current Wikipedia page on the hospital in general.

There was so much information I found in the archives that had not been included on the page so I was so excited to be able to really put forth the correct information and  tell the true story about the hospital.  At first I added small facts and edits into my draft, then I began adding huge paragraphs of information that never seemed to make it onto the page.  I then went back over it and made sure everything sounded perfect.  I used a thesaurus to make sure I had a good variety of words and didn't sound repetitive.  I also tried to use a neutral, factual voice when I was writing it.  I don't think there is a way to be really "for" or "against" the athens lunatic asylum though...

I haven't yet submitted the final version of the page yet because I am going to look over it some more tomorrow morning and add some pictures perhaps to the article, but when I do finally save changes, I will watch the article grow and get edited by others.  It was such interesting subject matter, I'd love to learn more even.

Intertextuality and the Discourse Community

It's safe to say that Donald Murray's article, "All Writing is Autobiographical" and James Porter's article, "Intertextuality and the Discourse Community" are far apart in viewpoints when it comes to writing and something being original or not.  Murray will argue that all writing is autobiographical whether it's in third person or not. That each work of literature and each student essay written, includes a fragment of that person's knowledge and experiences.  But Porter argues in his article that, everything we know is borrowed or has traces from previous things we've known.  It's almost as if Murray has a positive outlook on writing and Porter does not since he believes it is all stolen from previous sources we've encountered.  I think Murray does a better job drawing in my attention and making me believe his point of view on this topic, however Porter did have some enjoyable things to read in his article.  I thought his take on The Declaration of Independence being borrowed traces from other resources was really interesting.  Porter says that Benjamin Franklin, does not deserve nearly as much credit as he has been given, because most of the Declaration of Independence was formed from Franklin's knowledge of the past.

Honestly, everyone has a past so it's sort of impossible to completely take what all you've learned and write something.  It's physically impossible so that why I agree more with Murray than Porter because Porter might as well mock the the whole system of education if he says everything we write has traces from somewhere else and lacks originality.

All Writing is Autobiography

This was the first article out of all of them we have had to read so far that I actually feel like I agree with the author.  It's a very valid point that everything we write includes some bit of our own personal selves whether it be our morals, beliefs or feelings we're unsure we feel.  They all appear and come out through writing as Donald M. Murray explains in his article titled, "All Writing is Autobiography".  Within this article he brings up good points such as how no matter the subject matter, each piece of writing will turn out different.  We all have different writing styles and like to decide where things fit into the message we are trying to convey through writing, so when we begin to write our Wikipedia pages we have to be sure not to include any personal testimony on pages we make.  It all has to be factual, useful information, but no matter what each Wikipedia article will be slightly different and that's what makes it different from other encyclopedias.

Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents

Keith Grant-Davie, author of the, Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents, begins his article by first addressing how rhetoric, can be defined. Composition theorists like Grant-Davie himself, say it can be explained as an activity, an event or situation.  His example of advertisements really helps convey how rhetorical situations form.  Sometimes they are forced messages and other times they happen naturally.  "Language does things" is a simple way to conclude what and how rhetorical situations occur.

Rhetorical situations don't stand alone either.  They are made up of constituents as well.  Those constituents being, exigence, rhetors, audience and constraints.  The rhetor is the person who generates the discourse(discourse is the action being taken) and is often looked at as the "authorial voice".  The exigence happens when the rhetor senses a situation needs discourse or a time where discourse is resolved.  This discourse action happens to an audience whether it negative or positive.  And the final constituent is constraints where a factor may affect the overall outcome and prosperity of reaching rhetorical objectives.

Lastly, a compound rhetorical situation is when the constituents match up similarly within a group of people.  Grant-Davie gives an example of a public debate, "Examples of this kind of compound rhetorical situation can be found whenever public debate arrises, as it did recently in the editorial pages of a local newspaper in a rural community in the Rocky Mountains."  There are always people with their own opinions on each side, but to more complex issues not everyone is going to be exactly the same regarding feelings, emotions and thoughts.  That's what makes the situation rhetorically compound.  Each rhetor is trying to create exigence and changes the other rhetors' minds.

Phenomenology of Error

The Phenomenology of Error has an interesting concept behind it, and one I never actually took time to think about until now.  Joseph Williams, author of the article, begins by talking about constructs and the difference between a social construct and an average construct.  A construct is a standard in which we define the way we operate and write.  Each culture has their own, just as they also have their own social constructs.  Social constructs can be thought about as a chain of knowledge and how something became the way it is today.  Going off of an example Williams brings up, say you have an essay.  That essay exists because of what was in the student's mind and what was in the student's mind exists because of a book he/she was reading and that book he/she was reading was written by a writer who had other former knowledge in their head as well. Somewhere down the line, each fact, each story, develops it's own minor details.  Who decides which facts and stories are legitimate enough to be deemed academically correct though?

The errors found on Wikipedia today, are much more of a grammatical academic error, rather than the abrupt strange attacks on particular articles that the site used to face.  Wikipedia receives a lot of criticism for the mistakes that occasionally grace the site, but I think people forget that Wikipedia was created as a site specifically based on social constructs.

Brittanica has been called academically acceptable by someone anonymous who most of the general public do not know.  One person or just a few, decided on the correct ways to spell things, use commas, list facts about history etc, and those facts were placed in an encyclopedia.  Wikipedia however, allows users to act on their own knowledge and provide valuable information to a page where perhaps the author before them missed a couple of interesting facts.  If everyone shares something on the site it all adds up and joins the community that Wikipedia tried to set up in the first place.  I can honestly say, I have never been on Wikipedia and seen a messed up page and the facts I do record, I compare to books and legitimately based library sites and the knowledge matches up.  I don't believe we give the general public as much praise we deserve.  Sometimes I guess it is just easier to leave it up to one person to decide what's factual and what is not.

About Me

My name is Katie Chesnes and I am a junior at Ohio University studying retail merchandising.  I am Vice President Event Planning for my sorority, Pi Beta Phi and plan on furthering my interest in event planning for Limited Brands Corporation.

            I am from Columbus, Ohio and graduated from Worthington Kilbourne High School in 2009.  I spent majority of my childhood focusing on ballet all the way up until age 17.  I decided against auditioning for companies due to uncertainty with my future.  I didn’t like that I would have little to no control over knowing where I would stand because companies were extremely competitive, even for someone like myself who had trained for months with some of the best.   I enjoy business and decided I wanted to stand out from the average business major, so I chose retail merchandising which is the business selling process of apparel.

            My English 151 class did not teach me as much as I had expected, but surprisingly held my attention in different ways.  My professor asked me what I thought a lot and to apply my thoughts to what a textbook may be asking me.

            The course guidelines for 308J however, seem appealing and different, just like that 151 class.  I am excited to work on things through the computer and I never would have thought I’d be writing something for a Wikipedia page.  It’s a wonderful idea to have students within this class to create a blogging community because it allows us to get to know more students on campus as well as understand each person’s different styles of writing.  I taught myself HTML and CSS when I was younger and may come as a shock to most that I still remember some of the basic codes.  I’m excited to put those to use and really push myself to my full potential in this class.