My Wikipedia page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Akita

Toward a Composing Model of Reading

i think that i did a pretty good job in my article using each of the five functions that Tierney and Pearson described except for aligning. i do not believe that i accomplished that as much as i could but i think that is because i do not know who specifically my reader is so i dont think i can really align myself with them.

Planning: in planning for this projects i pretty much decided what i wanted to write about by searching wikipedia and checking if there was already an article listed for the topic and thought about places that i could get the information for my project.

Drafting: Because i changed topics half way through i did not use my usual drafting process. i didnt have enough time to take a break and go back to my draft later so my drafting process was shortened. this time i wrote, took a quick break and edited what i had written earlier.

Aligning: i dont think i did much aligning. when i was writing my article i did make sure that someone that had never heard about my topic would understand everything about it but that is as far as i went. i didnt really think about the reader beyond that point.

Revising: because i didnt have much time by the time my article was completed, i didnt do much revising. i was able to revise just before submitting.

Monitoring: i used this when i realized that i needed to change topics. i knew that there wasnt going to be enough information to write the paper that i wanted to so i changed topics to that i could write as well as i would have liked.

if it turns out that porter is right and intertextuality makes writing unoriginal then no piece of writing can truly be autobiographical. although murray makes good points to the fact that no matter what you are writing about and no matter the final content of your writing, you put your personal style and voice into the writing which makes it autobiographical. but if you are pulling quotes from other writing or taking and using ideas from other writing it changes the writing and gets rid of the autobiographical voice. taking pieces or ideas from other writers throws originality out the window.

when you take information from other pieces your voice can still be heard in between those added pieces but i think that the effect that a personal voice adds is lessened. because individuality is compromised, the pieces strength is also compromised.

What construct is Murray asking you to reconsider?

Murray is asking us to take another look at all writing and to see that no matter what the piece is about it is autobiographical. he wants us to see that because everyone is different and has a different "thinking style" and "voice" that this turns their writing (no matter the topic) into autobiographical writing. if someone else had written the paper in their own voice or style it would be completely different and only reflect the writer.

How might we apply his ideas to the kinds of writing we find on Wikipedia, or any encyclopedia?

Each of the articles has a different author. this means that each article is an individual's autobiography. each article is written in a different voice and reflects a different style. although when you read the articles they all seem to be written by one person, if you look closely you can see tiny bits of personal opinions and life stories.

Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents

What is a rhetorical situation and what are its constituents?

A rhetorical situation is “the context in which speakers or writers create rhetorical discourse” (104). It is also known as “a situation where a speaker or writer sees a need to change reality and sees that the change may be effected through rhetorical discourse” (105). The constituents are those people and things involved in the situation.

How can these constituents be defined? What is a compound rhetorical situation?

The constituents can be defined as exactly what they are. The writer, the reader, others that are involved, the situation itself, objects and the relations of all of those things.

A compound rhetorical situation that involves one subject but more than one rhetor and more than one audience member.

how is it useful for college student writers like yourself to be aware of the rhetorical situation and the constraints it creates?

If a college student is aware of rhetorical situations and the opportunities that they provide they will be able to write better for their audience. If a writer is aware of the situation and constraints then they will be able to write better for the audience that they are writing for ie their peers or professors. If one is aware of the audience they are writing for they should be able to get better reactions from the readers.

The Phenomenology of Error

In "The Phenomenology of Error," Joseph M. Williams argues that writing errors should be seen as "social constructs." What does he mean by this?

He means that people should essentially worry about when they make grammatical errors because other people in society will judge them for the errors that they make. Although he doesn’t say that people should correct others when they make errors, it would be pointless for grammar errors to be a part of social construction if there wasn’t someone there to make sure that people followed it and then punished when someone went against the rule or made an error.

Further, how might we apply this realization to the negative reception of Wikipedia and its characterization as inaccurate and error-prone?

Because of the way that society functions and sees errors and social constructs it makes sense that people are weary of the validity of Wikipedia. It has been drilled into our heads for years that information on the internet is hard to trust and Wikipedia should really never be trusted or used as a reference in an academic paper.

A 2005 study of Wikipedia's accuracy found that "Wikipedia scientific articles came close to the level of accuracy in Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar rate of "serious errors" ("Reliability of Wikipedia"). If we trust this research, why is Wikipedia being subjected to so much criticism while Britannica remains mostly undisputed? Can Williams help us answer this question?

I think that the reason that there is so much criticism surrounding Wikipedia is because “regular” people are allowed to contribute. If you look at the writers and editors of Britannica it is a list of reputable people. But if you look at the writers and editors of Wikipedia it is a list consisting of just about every kind of person you could think of. I think because Wikipedia doesn’t have the credentials that Britannica has people are weary of it and its validity.

Introduction

This is my blog for my writing and rhetoric class with Matt Vetter.

I am a psychology major from Columbus Ohio. I went to Columbus State for freshman and sophomore year. I took freshman writing at Columbus State and it was very beginner writing. It ended up being easier than high school English. It was rewarding to edit and review my classmates work and be able to help them as well as get feed back from others so as to make all of our writing better. The least rewarding part was that the prompts were very simple so I don’t feel that I grew as a writer from taking the class. Because the prompts were so simple I don’t think that the class could have really be made more challenging unless the entire structure and assignments were changed.

I like that this course is technology based. It is going to allow us to learn about a different side of writing as well as how to write better using formats that I am not used to using. This will be totally different than any other writing course that I have ever taken because of all of the technology.

I hope to be able to learn and grow as a writer by using these new formats. I am a little apprehensive because again this is all so new but I plan to work hard to do my best and learn as much as I can.