Looking back at past readings, looking forward to the essay about the movie-making process

Some of the readings that I think would be useful for this reason are obviously the first 2 books that we read, Strunk and White and Williams book's. Those can be used for anything that you are writing on because they are pretty much just grammar books. I also think that Ong could have some sort of a connection with this, his writing was about writing as a technology after all. McCloud could also fit in here, because in a way a short movie could be like a comic. You could always break it up into one easily enough. Most of the readings that we have done in class could be related to this essay and project in one way or another.

YouTube/Low-bridge videos: Are they good? Are they bad? Are they writing?

So far the process hasn't been too bad. Everything has its own bumps though, so it was expected. The actual video making is fun, but could be more fun if we all didn't have to work and go to school for so much time. Given enough time you could make a pretty good movie to teach people a little something about writing. I think that there is a gap in the writing process and video making process. This is not because it is a video, but because it's an extremely low budget video. With proper tools and editing, or atleast a better understanding of the editing, than the video could be much more informative. I can see a small point for Anderson's argument, but I think it could be better if there was a better website for the work that we are doing. There should be a learning video website, where only learning videos could be posted, and they were organized. Putting these video's on youtube does make the whole idea of this video as a learning tool kinda useless. I can't even find our video on youtube anymore. There is no organization, and way too many videos. I think that if the video's were made better and if ther was a better website, I think that this process could work a lot better.

Reading and Writing about Comics ala McCloud, Part 2

After glancing at a few of the comics that our class mates chose, I found one that was interesting to me. It was Alena's post about the comic Croaker's Gorge by Steven Ogden. That cartoon was funny to me because it was pretty much the way I grew up. I used to live in the city, then my mother made us move out into the country when I was about 10 years old. Being a kid, I would rather sit inside and play games with my friends online or on the console, than go outside and play in the corn. The comic she found was funny because of this reason, it directly related to me and my experiences growing up. It's also funny that the kid just goes outside to play the game instead of doing some sort of nature activity outside.
I agree with her statements relating the comic to McClouds Subject to Subject transistion. You can clearly see it in the comic strip scene that she specifically adresses. It's also clear to see the time changes that the strip goes through while the charachter is walking. She did a good job explaining and relating the comic strip to McCloud's writing.

Peer Review Recap, Part 3

In terms of peer review their isn't much of a difference. It's either not enough feedback, or for the most part feedback that is completely useless. I have found that people that are in our actual class do tend to give better feedback, probably because they are in our class and have to see us face to face over the semester. This peer review wasn't much different. One of the e-mails didn't even work, the other two sort of helped but weren't as far in depth. There needs to be a way to monitor if people actually gave feedback. Without that monitoring people are freely able to just do what they want, even if that includes that they don't do anything. E-mail is most definately the most useless form of peer review so far though. It is too hard to get useful feedback. So if I was you I would just take out this form of review and leave it on the google site, and maybe have them start a new document with just the info of who they reviewed, so that you can check if it was actually done or not.

Reading and Writing about Comics ala McCloud, Part 1

The comic I found online was a comic about "funny" ninjas, located at http://funnyninjas.wordpress.com/ . It's a couple different sets of a comic called Funny Ninjas, wrote and drawn by orangeninja. The comic is about two ninjas that are apparently trapped in the middle of a desert, with only each other, a laptop, and communication with a girl over the Internet named sexymuffingirl2891. The comic just starts out with the one ninja explaining to the other, that he is chatting with the Internet girl. The second strip of the comic talks about how the ninja with the laptop found a currecny site that would allow him to make his own currency, but he is deciding on what to name it. The third strip is about one of the ninjas getting a date with sexymuffingirl and figuring out that she is in jail and wouldn't be able to go anyway. The fourth part of the comic is actually very random, and doesn't seem to make sense or relate to anything. It speaks about Shakespeare, which doesn't have anything to do with the previous strips of the comic. The fifth and sixth strip of comics are about the comic first being let go, they are saying that the creator doesn't care for them anymore, and the next one is them saying bye because their series had been canceled.
This comic is interesting because it is a great example of the "icon" use for comics, which is best explained by Scott McCloud, in his book Understanding Comics, The Invisible Art. In his book he explains that icons are used in many different forms of comics, and how they still can represent something real, even though they are extremely abstract and look nothing like the real thing. McCloud wrote on page 28 of his book, "In pictures, however, meaning is fluid and variable according to appearance. They differ from "real-life" appearance to varying degrees." McCloud explains that there is a varying degree of icons to represent real life objects, persons, and even people. In the Funny Ninjas comic, the two characters are represented in the least life-like icon form. They are two stick figures, but you can still tell what they are supposed to represent. The ninja with the laptop represents a human, which is interesting to think about, because it looks nothing like a human, yet we as readers can still think of a human when we see the icon. The next ninja is a cat icon, which looks a lot like the human icon, but with its small differences. The ears and the nose with whiskers gives it away, which allows us to differentiate between the two characters and know that the second ninja isn't a human. Another interesting thing in the comic is in the last strip, last section of the comic. The two ninjas are waving goodbye to the readers, and around there hands are little lines, which are an icon to show movement. It's interesting to see that mark and automatically assume that they are moving their hands back and forth to create a good-bye motion with their hands. Even though the hands aren't moving, the image still shows up in your head that they are waving and actually moving their hands. The use of icons in this comic, as well as others, is very fascinating and put to good use, so that the readers can get more out of a comic than just simple images.

Picturing Texts on the Web

I chose the website www.marines.com, because it was created by the government, which means that they had some very good people designing the site, plus a couple of other different reasons. In terms of balance, I do believe that this website has it. It has a great balance of color for one, with all the colors integrating and creating a nice pattern while doing it. It does offer comparisons on the website also, while they aren't directly wrote. The headings on some of the images, as well as the opening video, give the note that joining the Marines will make you a better person overall, like the 2nd to last picture that has a title "A Better Life." It also has great classification with it too. All of the topics on the website have sub-topics that relate to it, and each one can be explained by clicking on it. It also has great picture descriptions on the site as well. The pictures allow for a lot of things to be said in such a small space, and it also can leave them open ended so that you can get any answer or depiction out of them that you were looking for. There is also great emphasis on the middle text in the page, "Explore the Marine Corps Story," which means that they obviously want you to click on it and explore the story. I also believe that all of the pictures on the website represent a metaphor of some kind. Especially the fourth picture on the bottom, which is of a Hum-V driving fast with the description, "Essential to our Freedom." The act of the Marines in the picture is the metaphor that what they are doing is essential to our freedom. Overall it was a pretty well designed website that hit all of the topics in the Picturing Texts article, and could appeal to all different sorts of people, with all different sorts of answers to their questions.

Post Time

Did you know the post times for this blog are wrong?

Peer Review Recap, Part 2

The things that worked well with the website for me, was that it was easy to navigate the site, in terms of getting from one paper to the next or putting my own paper on there. It was a pretty nice site, put together well. The only thing that really sucked about the site was the editing tools. It wasn't as useful as the google doc's site that we used the first time. It was just a little harder to edit because of the lack of tools. I wish I would have just received more advice in general, I did get good adivce from David and Mattie, but the other person that edited from your other class just wasted my time. It became 10 seconds of my life that I will never get back. I don't know what other advice I could have given to people, most of the papers I read were actually pretty good, there wasn't much I could do for them.
This peer review is the same as the last one pretty much, besides that it was between two classes. I only got three people to edit my paper and two of them were from the class that I was in, so not much of a difference. People should have been required to write what class they were in and each person should have only been allows 4 edits, so if there was four edits already done, you couldn't edit that paper further. Hopefully, that would even out the people that get edits and people would be more satisfied with their edits.

In reading my classmates blogs about Strunk and White, and William's book, I found that a lot of the people had the same feelings and thoughts as I did. I even found it interesting that Rebecca had almost the same idea of the Strunk and white book. In her blog she posted, "this book is very helpful as a reference tool for writers," (http://rcreteau.blogspot.com/). When I was thinking of my comparisons of the books, I too, came across the same idea. That the S&W book would be a good book to keep on hand for quick judgement calls if you get stuck on what to use in a certain situation. Rebecca and Alena also agreed on another comparison that I agreed with, in saying that the S&W book is mostly for strict grammar rules, and doesn't allow for any room in style, it must be kept short, tight, and neat, which was put in form must better by Alena, "I realized that this book contained a lot of answers that I had questions to as a writer. I feel that this book is focused towards the technical part of writing, rather then the quality or eloquence of it.," (http://nenarad07.blogspot.com/). Rebecca touched more on my opinion of my feelings towards the book that changed over time when she posted, "It blatantly answered some of the questions I have always had about specific grammar rules. However, as I read the book more carefully and thoroughly, my opinion of the book changed. Interlaced through the strict style rules..." (Becca). I whole heartily agree with this change in opinion. At the beginning of reading the book I thought it was a great book for writers that want to improve their writing, but then realized it's not really for improving your writing, just improving the structure of how it looks on paper. It was too strict and didn't give enough information or suggestions on style for improving writing, it didn't open the mind up to a new style or better style you could say. Both of them also agreed that William's information was much more complex, which I also agree with. You really have to pay attention to the reading and try to understand all of his suggestions in order to comprehend what is being suggested to improve your writing. Reading their blogs revealed to me that many of the other students feel the same way that I do about the books, which was kind of a relief in a small way (it let me know I was on the same page as them). :)

From what I recall in the reading, William's didn't hit the rules I discussed in my Strunk and White blog very much, mostly because it's a different type of book. Strunk and White'sbook was more of a straight to the point, no "why" about it. While Williams' book was not just giving certain rules for writing but why they were that way and even good examples of how to use them. I think Strunk and White's book was a lot farther in depth when it came to the grammar rules like commas, colons, etc. It gave a good basic layout for each type of punctuation in writing and a small example of each. William's did this in part, but not in depth and not on as many things as Stunk and White. Williams' book was a lot easier to understand and follow though, especially when he was explaining the sentence structures and different ways to make them flow, along with paragraphs and topics. He actually explains things in his book which was very helpful, because I personally am a person that doesn't like knowing or doing something without the "why" of it. I think it makes it easier to write "correctly" when you know why you are supposed to write this way, or why you should or shouldn't use this word or punctuation at this part of your writing. Overall I think the information Williams' gave on all of his chapters, but especially on the chapter Coherence, because it was a new way of thinking about your writing and it explains it very well. Which I think will allow me and many other people that read this book, the ability to write better for our careers. I think Stunk and White's book was only more effective in actually stating and reinforcing the basic rules of writing, it would be a good book for reference while writing if you were unsure of what word or punctuation to use at a certain point.

Revising with Williams

Original sentence:

A credit adjustment of 100 percent of tuition and fees for the fall and winter semesters, less the $40 nonrefundable registration fee, will be made to those students who cancel their registration or withdraw from the University through the eighth class day. For the spring and summer sessions, a 100 percent credit adjustment, less the $40 nonrefundable registration fee, will be made during the first four days of classes. Actual dates are printed in the class schedule book for each semester and session or on the Web.

Revised sentence:

For a credit adjustment with less than a $40 nonrefundable registration fee, in the fall or winter, 100 percent of the tuition and fee's will be returned to the student if they withdraw or cancel their registration by the eighth day of class. The same applies for summer and spring semesters, as long as the student withdraws within the first four days of class. Exact dates are printed in the class schedule book for each semester or on the web.

I chose to re-write this particular paragraph because when I first read it I didn't really understand what it was even talking about. I had to read it a second time, slower, so that I could understand what it was actually about. The original paragraph makes the writing impersonal. I wanted it to appeal more to the person reading it and to appeal to anyone reading it. Most of the sentences and some of the words in it were too broad and didn't make it sound like they were directly writing to a student, or even a new student, more to a person that has already had to deal with that situation or that works in the University. The way the sentence was arranged was also what made it hard to read, so I rearranged it to satisfy the flow of the reading as Williams suggests. There were also different ways that I arranged the sentences that got rid of useless words that just cluttered the sentences, making them even harder to understand. Overall with the advice and reading of Williams I think that I made this sentence easier to read and understand, increase the flow and make the writing a little more personal so someone can relate to it.

Strunk and White: First Impressions

The whole first chapter of this book was helpful. I had often wondered about certain rules and exceptions but I have never come across a book that explains them so easily as this one does. It was nice finally having some of those questions answered. The use of the semicolon compared to the use of the colon also cleared up some questions, and it turns out that I may have been wrong on some of the ways I have been using it for the past 10 years. I also found it interesting that you can use a comma before the word and in certain cases. When I was a wee boy in school, I remember teachers scolding me about using comma's before and, no matter what the case was, so for many years I have never used it like that. I also learned a new rule about the use of quotations, which finally made me understand what one of my professors was talking about last semester when she took a point off my test for quoting a Shakespeare paragraph. Chapter four was also very fun to read, some of the words I was unsure about, or just never had the real differences in them explained to me, so that was an interesting read. Page 73 explains the use of qualifiers, which I had also never heard of that rule before.
There were a few things in the book that I thought were personally wrong or unhelpful. The use of has or have in a sentence on page 10 was outdated in my mind. I guess I just don't understand the difference in that sentence besides tense. I also think that the word prioritize is a perfectly o.k. word to use. It is used so much in today's language that it's hard to think of another word that would replace that while still using priority as its context. This goes hand in hand with the use of numbers to state where you are in a topic, for example, secondly and thirdly. Those are used just as often in today's language, so I don't really see why they shouldn't be used. Pretty much anyone who reads those words in a paper will understand what it means and not have any problem with it being used.
I would like to make a few brief comments on three of the things in the book. Revise and rewrite is said way too much, everyone that writes seriously knows they should do it, it's just a matter of whether or not they actually do it. There is no reason for anyone to ever say that again, it's annoying to hear it as much as I have to, being an English major and all. Another is the topic of Avoid fancy words. Sometimes fancy words are use way too much, most people like to read out of enjoyment and I find that too many authors feel that they have something to prove and it really just dulls the reading and makes it uninteresting when you have to think about what that word means instead of just enjoying the story or paper. The last of the topics was Avoid foreign languages. Using a foreign language in an English speaking country is extremely annoying. I'm reading a book for another class right now and he uses way too many french words or expressions and NEVER explains them. It's probably the most annoying book I have ever had to read and it is my personal belief that the author should have to buy my book back from me, add in the translations, and then give it to me for free. It takes away from the story when I don't know what half of the characters in the book are even talking about. I'm done ranting.
P.S. - I think I went over 500 words. My bad.
P.S.S. - I also broke all of the rules that I just read in this book, it's going to be hard to break this habit after so long.

Peer Review Recap, Part 1

The whole process worked well for me, I liked how easy the google doc program was to use. It was a new experience, which I would recommend for other people as well. It's also a easy to make corrections and suggestions for people. The only thing that didn't work to well for me was the speed of it, I don't know if there is shortcuts for the commands that you can do, but if there is that would have made the whole process a lot quicker, having to pull down the menu to do a cross out every time or commen was quite annoying. I received all good advice and I liked the suggestions that they made, although there was two comments that I didn't really understand where they were coming from. I do not wish that I gave more advice, I believe I gave adequate advice to my partners.

My Writing Technologies

The writing technologies that I use are obviously the most common ones. Mechanical pencils, pens, markers or my computer. The only reason I mention markers is because I use them every day at work for tracking labels and corrections to system problems and other employee errors. I use pen's on a daily basis because it is more permanent than a pencil. Only certain people at work are allowed to use pens, most people have to use pencils at work so that we know what is actually authorized by other management employees. I try to avoid writing with anything that is not black or blue, other colors tend to just annoy me. I do not like regular wooden pencils, the sharpening and horrible erasers are an incredible waste of time, why spend all the extra time to deal with this when you can write with just a click from a mechanical pencil or a pen. Over the years I developed this annoyance for the wooden pencils, I even draw with mechanical pencils. They are always sharp and to a point, good for drawing or writing clearly. My computer is my other main form of writing, I use it for all of the papers and assignments that I possible can. It is much quicker for me to type than it is to write. Since I was a child I have been on computers, typing and experimenting, so I have excelled in it over the many years. The computer is by far one of the greatest writing technologies invented so far, even better than the new invention of writing that can be converted to typing on your computer. It doesn't always catch the words correctly, and is still slower than typing because of the time it takes for the conversions. These are my writing technologies on a daily basis.

What is style?

Style, in my mind, is a distinctive characteristic of anything; and by anything I mean, a person, place, way of life, object, really anything. It's the special characteristic that sets something apart from any other thing, like the Greek buildings and sculptures, which set them apart from all other societies and forms of buildings. Music is also another good example of style. There are many different forms of style in music, even sub styles of the same type of music, i.e. techno, industrial techno, trance techno, Japanese techno and so on and so forth. All things have style and style is the defining characteristic of all things.

Getting Started

A blonde walks into an appliance store and says I would like to buy that T.V. please. The store clerk replies Im sorry, we dont do business with blondes. So she stormed off back to her house and dyed her hair black. The next day, she went back to the same store and said I would like to buy that T.V. please. The store clerk, once again, replies Sorry, we dont do business with blondes. The blonde replied How did you know I was blonde? The clerk says Because thats a microwave, not a T.V.

What weighs more; a ton of feathers, or a ton of gold?