Blog III: Your Favorite Website

For this post, you are to discuss your favorite website.  First, discuss why use this website.  What does it offer you?  Using terms discussed in Chapter 9, write a brief critique on your favorite website. Is there anything that needs to be improved?  Also, consider the different contexts (PEPE) and readers (Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary).  Full credit will be given to blogs that have terms like homepage, nodes, and links.  This post is good practice for those of you doing the website critique.

Ebay: Auction II

For this blog, you are to ignite your free-market instincts and create an auction a mock Ebay auction.   First, you need to find an item that you want to sell.  Once you've done that, then you need to write a three-sentence ad in which you describe it.   The description should include what it is, the item's condition, it's price, and your shipping policies.   After you finish with that, you need to discuss the four contexts (political, economic, ethical, and physical) related to your sale.  For example, are you selling a bootleg LP or something that is not commercially manufactured?  What might be some ethical principles surrounding an illicit item.  As for economic, what socioeconomic class is your item for—the rich, middle-class, or the plebs?  Regarding the physical, in what environment is your item going to be used?   And when you get to the political, think about the ideology of your potential buyer.  Does the item appeal to someone with a certain political ideology?

Your ad should not be written in an overly complex way.  Remember, the average person reads at about a fourth grade level, so remember your audience. 

Best of luck!

Blog I: Fall of 2013. Blogging about Work.

You've just been hired at Calvin and Hobbs[sic], an investment company.   Most of your day consists of seeing clients and giving them financial advice.  Being that you are such a grade-A swindler, you are making good money.  Unfortunately, sitting behind a desk all day gets boring.  But, one day, while walking to the water cooler you over hear Jane talking on the phone with one of her girlfriends. 

Although she is personable enough, there are days you wish she would put down her phone to stifle herself.  She talks about her nights at the clubs, guzzling Cosmos and going home with different men.  You often ponder what any man would see in a woman plain as vanilla yogurt and as obnoxious as a braying jackass.  Just when you thought you had enough, your imagination starts:  Why not write down these stories and put them on a blog. 

You recall reading an article about making money starting a blog while sipping your imported coffee drink at Starbeans, a good company buying coffee beans at third-world prices only to charge their customers a terrorist's ransom for a sip of their re-badged Folgers.  After snapping your fingers, you raid the office supply room for a legal pad and wait as Jane starts talking.  Her awful laugh sends shivers down your spine, but your steady hand guides the pen.  True-blue ink fills the space between lines, as you absorb last night's drunken high-heeled excursion.

For this first blog posting, you are to consider the legal problems with writing a blog about one of your coworkers.  To help you consider the dangers, go to this link: https://www.eff.org/issues/bloggers/legal

Write at least one danger you could face by writing a blog.  Then, discuss if you have to reveal your identity if you decide to risk blogging about coworkers.

Once you've done that, what might be some things you can do to protect yourself from harm while writing your stories.   Hint:  Think about the identities and names of people.

This first blog should be at least five to seven sentences long.

Kickstarter Project

For blogs III and IV, I want to start thinking about a project you want to accomplish.  This project needs to be funded.  Try to imagine yourself as an entrepreneur wanting to get your project off the ground.  You can be an aspiring filmmaker, a software developer, or a restaurant owner; the possibilities are endless. Once you have decided on your project, you must write your ad.

Here are the requirements needed for this blog:

(1)An ad that is at least a paragraph long. In this ad, you must consider your rhetorical situation (the five w's and the how).  Write a professional ad where you describe your project and your goal.

(2)Make sure you name your price for this project.  Next, set a number of days for you will keep this ad open.  For example, do you expect you'll need forty days to receive ten thousand dollars for your project?

(3) Once you've completed the second set, write what your backers will receive for their donations. Here's an example:

(A) Those who pledge $100 to Pro. P's PhD fund will receive a limited edition note card with the grand scholar's research scribble.  Raspberry mocha coffee ring included.

(B)Those who pledge $1,000 will receive a hand-written rough draft entitled Pro. P's Guide to Italian Horror Movies and Soundtracks and Their Subversive Irrelevance to Composition Theory and other Rhetorical Nonsense. Impress your philistine friends with this hard-to-read scholarly chicken scratch complete with poems and sketches made during class.

(C) Those who pledge $3,000 will receive an awkward smile, a whimpy handshake, and a free continental breakfast from Denny's—coffee and orange juice not included. Consider this cheap, greasy, unhealthy breakfast as way of shielding my true elitist tendencies.  I want to be a PhD for the people.  Please note: No Romantic languages will be spoken during this sit-down, mainly because I will have forgotten them after writing my dissertation.

(4)Once you have written your incentives for your backers, conclude with the contexts of your ad (PEPE). Then write and briefly discuss the different readers of your ad. 

(5)This ad should concise and well-written.  The smoother your delivery, the more likely someone will give you money.   You may also make a video to help promote your project.

(6)This will be due by Sunday, March 2nd.  It will count as two blogs.  Best of luck.

Blog II: Summer B

The Career Search

Congratulations!  You are coming close to the end of your first four years of college.  You are now ready to start thinking about your career.  For this blog, I would like you to choose your dream career.  In doing so, you are to answer the following questions:

(1)What is your career?

(2)What education requirements do you need for this career?

(3)What the salary expectations are?

(4)What experience do you need before you can take this job?

Then, once you have finished answering those questions, you must write an objective statement that might go on a future resume or CV.  This objective statement should not be too narrow or too broad.  Instead, it should it be just right for this job.

Good luck!

Blog I, Summer B

Facebook Report

           

            You are an admissions officer in a first-tier college.   The finest talent of the nation attends your school.  It just so happens that a large percentage of undergraduates continue their graduate studies at your school.  Unfortunately, it gets harder and harder to let new students into graduate programs because the seats are filled by former undergraduates.

            A respected colleague of yours comes up with a suggestion: A recent article written about party universities reveals your college to be in fifth place out ten schools.  Going from this article, your colleague suggests infiltrating students' Facebook pages for acceptance or denial into the graduate programs.   You like the idea and come up with a document called the Facebook Report.  In this report, you name the students who have inappropriate material on their Facebook pages.  For this blog posting, you are to do the following:

(1)Briefly discuss how you plan to infiltrate a student's Facebook page.

(2)Discuss what things would constitute grounds for rejecting a former student into your graduate program.

(3)Name the four readers of your document, Facebook Report, and how the role they play in perusal of your exposé.  Hint:  the four readers are gatekeeper, primary, secondary, and tertiary.

Kickstarter Project

For blogs IV and V, I want to start thinking about a project you want to accomplish.  This project needs to be funded.  Try to imagine yourself as an entrepreneur wanting to get your project off the ground.  You can be an aspiring filmmaker, a software developer, or a restaurant owner; the possibilities are endless. Once you have decided on your project, you must write your ad.

Here are the requirements needed for this blog:

(1)An ad that is at least a paragraph long. In this ad, you must consider your rhetorical situation (the five w's and the how).  Write a professional ad where you describe your project and your goal.

(2)Make sure you name your price for this project.  Next, set a number of days for you will keep this ad open.  For example, do you expect you'll need forty days to receive ten thousand dollars for your project?

(3) Once you've completed the second set, write what your backers will receive for their donations. Here's an example:

(A) Those who pledge $100 to Pro. P's PhD fund will receive a limited edition note card with the grand scholar's research scribble.  Raspberry mocha coffee ring included.

(B)Those who pledge $1,000 will receive a hand-written rough draft entitled Pro. P's Guide to Italian Horror Movies and Soundtracks and Their Subversive Irrelevance to Composition Theory and other Rhetorical Nonsense. Impress your philistine friends with this hard-to-read scholarly chicken scratch complete with poems and sketches made during class.

(C) Those who pledge $3,000 will receive an awkward smile, a whimpy handshake, and a free continental breakfast from Denny's—coffee and orange juice not included. Consider this cheap, greasy, unhealthy breakfast as way of shielding my true elitist tendencies.  I want to be a PhD for the people.  Please note: No Romantic languages will be spoken during this sit-down, mainly because I will have forgotten them after writing my dissertation.

(4)Once you have written your incentives for your backers, conclude with the contexts of your ad (PEPE). Then write and briefly discuss the different readers of your ad. 

(5)This ad should concise and well-written.  The smoother your delivery, the more likely someone will give you money.   You may also make a video to help promote your project.

(6)This will be due by Sunday, March 2nd.  It will count as two blogs.  Best of luck.