Blog 4 - JSTOR vs Op-Ed

I really like all of the memes people are choosing to illustrate their blogs, but it's getting late and my desire to be witty is decaying as we speak, so here's the first one I found and liked after typing "opinion meme" into Google. It's a pun and it's an elephant. Uh, does it get any better than that? I think not.

So the articles I chose were arbitrarily picked based on their titles, as is the case for many things I do in life. Nothing political because then it gets too messy - and that made it easy because that narrowed down a lot of options. 

So, with that in mind I'll jump right into the article explaining this phenomena; JSTOR's "How Does the Language of Headlines Work?". In this article, the author followed the evolution of headlines. Employing research dating back to 1625, the timeline of this article spans almost 400 years as the author compares one of the very first headlines in London to the common tactic of "clickbaiting" many web users are familiar with today. Some interesting points made by the author was (1) that newspaper articles began using present verb tenses in their headlines which created a sense of urgency to read the article because it made readers feel like the action was still in effect, and (2) clickbait tactics make use of pronouns without former reference to a proper noun, creating mystery and intrigue among viewers, reeling them into clicking on an online article.

The next article, titled "Why Facts Don't Unify Us", relayed the results of a recent experiment done regarding how people view climate change and whether they would be swayed if they received new information. The end result was that people who had viewed Global Warming in a negative light from the get-go easily pictured a darker future when given more alarming statistics but weren't swayed much from their original viewpoint when given a more promising outlook. The opposite held true for individuals who felt like Global Warming would affect them much less negatively in the future. The point of this article was to show the trend in polarization that occurs among society even when given the same facts. The statistics that these test subjects were given only drove a deeper wedge between the two viewpoints. 

In another JSTOR article regarding "The Politics of Kindness in 2016", the author illuminated how the generosity shown today is strewn all over the posts of facebook and in the media. He mentions that a trend is forming where good deeds are displayed on social media or in access for others to see, which turns being kind into a twisted way to draw sympathy and regard from other people. He argues that doing so takes away the base foundation of what it means to be "kind" because the motives are changing if people openly try to advertise their kindness. 

The 3rd JSTOR article I read dealt with "Where American Public Schools Came From" and it outlined the history of how schools formed and dealt with the philosophical question of how much is society's responsibility to educating the young. Surprisingly, the piece reports that people don't really disagree with this and are willing and wanting to offer good schools to students through taxes. 

I really enjoyed reading "Liberals are the Sort of People Who..." which was a whirlwind of contradictions assigned to "liberals" which served to point out the flaws in Liberalistic American thinking based on views and (I'm guessing) a few examples of real-life liberals. Some were very humorous while others I had to think about ..."[Liberals are the sort of people who] demand that men be allowed to use the women's restroom even as they claim conservatives are engaged in a war on women". While it was a very entertaining read, it was not in the least bit backed by any facts or proof and seemed to lump the characteristics of different types of liberals into the same groups, which is why the material presented is skewed and makes liberals appear ludicrous.

On a more serious topic, the last topic I read about what an Op-Ed titled "Criminal Rape Cases Should Not be a Ticking Clock". This article dealt with the Cosby rape/assault cases and served to shed light on how, in California and many other states, there is a time limit on reporting crimes - called the statute of limitations. This article's opinion centered around the fact that rape-related cases should be exempt from that rule due to the nature of the crime because many victims will not report these incidents until years later. This article mentions the Justice for Victims Act and indirectly urges readers to support this bill, even mentioning how the Governor has this bill on his desk. 

Overall, I enjoy the Op-Eds more than the JSTOR articles because of their nature of being extremely one-sided. The one's I have read were a very entertaining read and gave me many things to think about. While they weren't all backed by facts, they still held some undeniably strong opinions which, with research, could certainly lead to factual evidence backing up those opinions. The JSTORS, I found, were much drier in nature and were not too far from academic writing and I think this type of style developed within this genre because they stem from an academic setting of condensing current research and findings. Op-Eds on the other hand seem to be as free and biased as they come and are granted the liberty to say many ridiculous things if it lies in accordance of the author's opinion. 

Blog Two - Genres

In-class essays were never fun in high school. You knew as soon as you got into class you'd have a mere 50 minute time limit to cram an elegantly addressed, perfectly articulated, and transitionally smooth essay. It didn't even matter if you were good at writing or not - those five-paragraph essays sucked.

Looking back at that, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want to become a writer. But what I didn't see is that writing is about so much more than school-type expository or persuasive essays. Being a writer isn't limited to just novels or scientific research findings. There's a whole other world of writing that we come across everyday which lives worlds apart from the mundane genre of the five-paragraph essay. 

In Devitt's article she brings up many points of why there's fear in teaching students different genres of writing. From the viewpoint of a teacher, a five-paragraph essay is the cleanest, most traditional form of writing that enables you to gauge how effective a student's argument is. Points are clearly laid out in each paragraph and the thesis can easily be spotted. There are so many more avenues to take, however, when trying to get information across. Pamphlets, brochures, blogs, articles, infographics. 

Like Professor Flewelling said on the first day of class - the day we graduate will most likely mark the last time we will ever be tied to the requirement of five-paragraph essays. That day, however, doesn't mark the last chance we have at written communication. We have to start learning how to navigate these other routes of written word. We have to learn how to effectively get our opinions out there, whether it be through meme, private journaling, public letters to the editor, ANYTHING. Just so long as we continue the conversation that makes up our life. 

In learning the ropes of new genres people can start to take on a persona of the ideaologies backing that genre (like how it was mentioned a Mozart composer would probably behave differently than a Heavy Metalist). I wonder if that is not for the fact that there are certain expectations of a genre. Certain characteristics, you could say, that draw the audience in. In trying to build a successful "meme" or "article" or whatever your genre may be you have to adopt those characteristics in your writing to please the audience. We morph into that personality so that the success of our work gets the point across. 

That isn't always such a good thing, though, according to Devitt's article. She stresses that we need to start criticizing how genres are molded. The genres "represent particular viewpoints that shape our existence on the world" (Devitt 348) and sometimes it's too hard to see who is influencing who. It's like the age old questions of whether or not media creates violence or simply acts as a mirror, displaying it to viewers. We are politically and socially swayed by genres and in order to remain always questioning the right and wrong it is important to learn about genres so that we can pick out the biases among them.

Learning about the genres of blogs, and actually experiencing it, has given me some time to reflect on my first impressions of this new type of written communication.

The vibe of a blog offers somewhat of a false sense of security. It is almost like writing a diary. The words flow from mind to keyboard and there isn't any pressure to plan everything out. I'm in the comfort of my own home and that makes me feel safe - yet I know that this is going to be published on the internet and others are going to read it. I know not everything I say if going to be backed by proof or even taken positively by viewers. But this is still a great source of communication. Following someone's blog is like having an internet pen-pal friend. You can see what they are up to and their blog usually has a theme. You can pick when to subscribe and unsubscribe and there is no obligation to read every post. That is my take on blogging so far. I don't follow any blogs as of yet, but I do enjoy a good vlog - which isn't so far off. It is all very personal and thank you for taking the time to read this. As I continue blogging for class I am sure I will find my "blog voice" and my writing style will change to fit the genre. Opening up to new ideas isn't only important for classroom learning it's also a big part of personal growth. The more we know about the world, the more we find out about ourselves.